


Right Turn

by NYS30



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Bonnie accidentally travels back in time, Canon up to 6x15, F/M, Gen, abby stepping up, actually being a mother, and meets the Gemini coven, and not a horror movie cliche, appearance of another crossbow, bringing lucy back, cause it's B.S that she dies, hijacks Klaus's coffin, more world jumping, original parker siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2019-10-01 21:12:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17251478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NYS30/pseuds/NYS30
Summary: When Bonnie does the spell to get her out of 1994, something misfires. Instead of ending up back in present day Mystic Falls, she's returned to Mystic Falls years in the past, right after Klaus is desiccated. She makes a split second decision that will change the course of the future.





	1. Chapter 1

"I can mash potato, I can mash potato

I can do the twist, I can do the twist

Now tell me baby, tell me baby

Do you like it like this?"

Bonnie softly sang along to the golden oldie that was currently playing on the radio station. The song always reminded her of spending evenings standing on her father's toes as they danced. At least before he started taking so many out of state trips in order to avoid being in their home.

She was currently parked on a quiet residential street just outside Santa Barbara. According to the information she'd acquired along the way, she was in the right place, but there had been no movement inside or outside of the pretty bungalow style home for the last few hours.

She leaned back onto the headrest and closed her eyes. She'd had a long few days of driving, preferring to stay off the main roads while keeping her stops for food and gas to a minimum. Not for the first time, she wondered if she was doing the right thing.

You started this, you need to see it through. She admonished herself.

Her phone buzzed and Bonnie didn't even bother to open her eyes as she reached over to silence it. She knew by the ringtone who it would be, and as much as she wanted to speak to Caroline and explain what was going on, Bonnie didn't want to be distracted by her friends' tears and pleas.

She felt a wave of magic sweep over her and sat up abruptly. She sent an answering pulse in response to the questioning probe. Not a minute later, Bonnie watched as lights flooded the home and the front door was wrenched open. "Bonnie?"

She exited her vehicle and made her way to the entrance of the house, stopping once she was within arms distance of the figure in the doorway. "Yeah. Hey cuz."

Lucy's face was a mask of confusion, "Are you okay, what are you doing here?

Bonnie cleared her throat nervously, "You remember when you said you'd see me again?" At Lucy's nod, Bonnie smiled sardonically, "Well that would have been a lie." Her cousins eyes widened and she took a good look at Bonnie before stepping back to let her in. "You look like you've been through hell, and your aura is all over the place. Come in and we'll talk."

Bonnie smiled gratefully before she gestured back to the vehicle she had arrived in, "Is that gonna be okay parked where it is?"

Lucy waved a hand, "Yeah, it'll be fine. What, you got something expensive in there?"

"Just Klaus Mikealson's desiccated body."

"WHAT?"

 

**

 

One week earlier

Bonnie came back to awareness slowly, it didn't feel like she was still in the cave. Instead of smelling dirt and rocks, she smelt stale air and…..was that smoke? She sat up slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness of the place.

Where the hell was she?

Why did her neck feel so sore?

And what the hell was that smell?

She gingerly climbed to her feet, pausing to let the moment of nausea pass. Once she was standing, she took another look around. She was definitely inside somewhere, something about the place looked familiar. She wandered around a bit, stepping around a few stray boxes and crates. It looked like some kind of storage facility, she deduced.

'Why the hell…' her thoughts trailed off when it hit her like a sledgehammer, this was the storage place where she and Damon had attempted to keep Klaus after he had been desiccated!

Why the hell had the ascendant sent her here? This wasn't anywhere near the cave, in fact, this storage place had been chosen specifically because it was outside of Mystic Falls. She continued to feel her way along the walls, trying to remember how to get out when she heard a noise behind her.

"Didn't I snap your neck already?"

Bonnie turns slowly, the voice sounded like Alaric, but the Alaric that she knew would never say that to her. He must have been talking to someone she couldn't see.

'Of course the ascendant would bring me back right in the middle of some kind of battle. Can't I get a 5 minute break at least?'

Alaric finally steps into her line of vision and she could immediately tell something wasn't right. "Ric, what's going on?"

"What's going on, Bonnie" He snarled her name, "is that when I kill someone, they should stay dead."

Bonnie held up her hands, "No disagreement here, but why are you looking at me like that?"

"You think that doesn't include you? You think that just because you're a witch, you're something special?" With every word he advanced closer.

Bonnie was completely weirded out at this point. "Look I have no idea what is going on, you sound completely unhinged. Where's Damon? Maybe he can-" Before she could get the entire sentence out, he charged in her direction, slamming her body against the wall and holding her there by the throat.

"What the actual fuck, Alaric?" Bonnie croaked.

"I see snapping your neck didn't do any good, let's see if you come back when I remove your head from your body."

'Fuck this.' Bonnie sent a silent motus to Alaric, sending him crashing into the opposite wall. They regarded each other warily. This was not the Alaric that she knew, the only time she'd ever heard him speak this way was when he had been brainwashed by Esther.

Three whole years ago.

"No." Bonnie whispered, horror mounting as she realized what must have happened. "No, no, no, no."

"BONNIE!" Damon sounded like he'd been calling for a while. Bonnies head snapped to her right, and Alaric used her distraction to speed by in that direction. Bonnie wanted to follow, but she had to get her head wrapped around what was happening.

From what she remembered, she had been left with Klaus's body while Damon had tried to hold off Alaric. But wait, wasn't Rebekah here at one time as well? Bonnie suddenly realized what the smoky smell was. Alaric must have already staked Klaus and caused his body to start burning.

Which meant Rebekah had already seen it and assumed that her brother was dead.

Which meant she was probably already on her way back to Mystic Falls.

Which meant Bonnie had a slim chance to stop Matt from taking Elena over the bridge where Rebekah would cause their accident.

"Where's my damn phone?" She retraced her steps to where she had woken up to see if it was there, but no luck. She was winding her way towards the sounds of fighting when she heard Damon's anguished "NO!"

She was too late.

By the time she reached Alaric's body, Damon was long gone. Alaric was lying in a shallow puddle, eyes still open in surprise. Bonnie felt a twinge of sadness, Alaric hadn't asked for any of this, and had truly tried to do his best, but it always seemed he fell a little short each time. She leaned over and closed his eyes while saying a quick prayer for his transition to the other side.

She tried to recall what she had done the first go round. She had gotten Klaus's body, called Tyler to get him to agree to the swap in order to save their sire line. Following the scent of burnt flesh, she discovered Klaus's still smoking body lying in his coffin. She quickly got him loaded up and was soon on her way back to Mystic Falls.

She was coming upon the fork in the road that would either take her back to Mystic Falls, or lead her out of Virginia. Bonnie pulled over to the side of the road and sat for a moment. It would be so easy right now to just light him up again and let him burn. Even knowing that it would signal the end of a few people that she cared deeply for, the temptation to end it all right then and there was enormous. She cycled through all that would happen if she let everything play out just like last time:

-The search for the cure.

-Learning Expression and letting it overwhelm her.

-Jeremy being killed so Silas can be released.

-Elena turning off her humanity and wreaking havoc.

-Sacrificing herself to bring Jeremy back and dying as a result.

-Being dead for an entire summer and nobody noticing.

-Silas slitting her father's throat while she was a ghost and being powerless to stop him.

-Coming back as the anchor, going through agony every time a supernatural being died and crossed over.

-The other side collapsing, leading to her dying again, and being tossed into the Prison World.

-Being tortured by Kai before being left stranded and alone.

-Enduring a failed rescue attempt, and being left alone again.

-Attempting suicide due to loneliness.

Bonnie's soul felt heavy just thinking about what was to come. But, she had the knowledge to change events this time, right? It didn't have to turn out as messy as it had before. She knew the location of the cure, and what was involved in retrieving it, so there would be no reason to involve Jeremy. Elena could become human again.

'Why give it to Elena? Why not Abby?' The question had plagued her the first time around as well. There was not a moment's hesitation that the cure would be for Elena. Had they even offered it to Caroline? Bonnie knew Caroline had grown into her vampirism, so she would say no, but she never even got the chance to refuse it.

Knowing what she knew now, there was no way in hell she'd ever put herself in the position to become the anchor again. She felt for the girl that was currently doing that duty, she really did, but she wasn't touching that with a ten foot pole.

Her father's face kept flashing in front of her eyes. Never in her life had she felt so weak, so powerless, as that moment. To make it worse, he had just had a cursory burial. No ceremony, which was another slap in the face, considering he was still mayor at the time. Nobody had cared, as much as it pained her to admit, that included her supposed friends.

Bonnie started up the truck and continued on her way, for whatever reason, she had been given a second chance to do things over. She would make different choices this go round, she won't die this time, she assured herself. She would be able to keep her father alive, it wouldn't be a clusterfuck, she stubbornly insisted to herself.

It wouldn't.

Soon she was at the fork in the road, left for Mystic Falls, right to continue on. As she turned her blinker on to signal going left, her father's face flashed in front of her eyes.

Bonnie turned right.

 

**

 

"So you're telling me you hijacked the original hybrids body and came here to do what, exactly?" Lucy had long since forgotten about her tea and was sitting on the edge of the sofa hanging off Bonnie's every word.

"I don't know. I just know I couldn't let things progress how they did before. Abby had already been turned, so I couldn't change that, but my dad?" Bonnie shrugged, "I'm gonna try my hardest to at least try and give him a chance at staying alive."

"Well, where are you going to stash his body? You have to know that Elijah and the rest will be using every single witch contact that they have in order to find it, if they haven't started already. There's really nowhere on this earth that you can hide him for very long."

At Lucy's words, Bonnie felt a shiver run down her spine. "Then maybe he shouldn't be on this earth." She turned to her confused cousin. "Do you know anyone in the Gemini coven?"

"How do you even know….." Lucy's eyes widened briefly before nodding to herself. "Okay, you obviously have been through some things, and have learned a lot since I saw you last. What exactly do you know about the Gemini Coven?"

"I know they created a prison world for one of their own, using Bennett blood to bind it." Bonnie explained.

"Okay, but do you know why?" Lucy pressed.

Bonnie chuckled bitterly, "Oh yeah, I know why. I met the reason why."

Lucy tilted her head in confusion, "You met Joshua Parker?"

"What?" Bonnie sat up abruptly. "No! I met Kai. Who's Joshua?

"His dad." At Bonnie's continued look of confusion, "The former head of the Gemini Coven." She elaborated. "What did Kai do to get locked away?"

"He was sent there because he killed four of his siblings! What did Joshua do?"

"Joshua snapped when Kai won the merge, and attempted to imprison him until a new leader could be chosen. He stabbed Kai and tried to use an ascendant to lock him up. But Kai got the upper hand and Joshua was the one sent away."

"Wait." Bonnie held up a hand, "What's a merge?"

"I thought you knew about the Gemini?"

"He talked a little about his family, and I know he was in a coven, but other than that, I don't know too much. I was a bit preoccupied with trying to get away from the psycho. He liked to go on and on about all kinds of stuff, so he may have mentioned it, but I probably wasn't paying attention. " Bonnie replied.

"Well, the Gemini are a centuries old coven, one of the oldest to ever exist, very old world and old school in how they choose a new leader. On their 22nd birthday, if the current leader has succeeded in having twins, there's a ceremony in which the twins will magically battle it out."

"Wait, they make them fight each other?" Bonnie interrupts, horrified. If this is what Kai had grown up in, no wonder he didn't see any downside to murdering his siblings.

Lucy shakes her head, "It's not a physical fight, I guess it's more like their magical abilities go head to head. Whoever is the dominant twin wins and absorbs their siblings' magic as well as parts of their personality."

"What happens to the one that loses? Are they just magic-less?" Bonnie queried.

"No, they die." Lucy broke the news gently. "That's why it's always done with twins, so that the winner will be named leader. It's assumed that they will have had the same upbringing and magic training, so to have them going head to head is assumed to be a fair fight in most cases."

Bonnie frowned, "But Kai didn't have magic of his own, he could only take it from other people. That wouldn't have been a fair fight, unless someone gave him magic right before the ceremony."

"That's why Joshua snapped. Kai is….was a siphoner, so he naturally had an advantage. That's also why he and his wife kept having kids until they got another set of twins." Lucy watched as Bonnie absorbed the information.

"But that's stupid. Even if that person was completely off their rocker crazy cakes, the merge would be a good thing, right? Because unless their twin was crazy pants as well, it would only help mellow the winner out! Why try to stop it at all?" Bonnie was incredulous. All that happened could have been avoided if they'd just followed their own rules.

"Many of the Gemini believe that being a siphoner is an abomination, and that they shouldn't even be allowed to do the merge." Lucy shrugged again, "I don't get it either, but there were rumors that the prison world that Joshua was banished to was supposed to be for Kai until the younger set of twins came of age and could merge. I think that's why Kai sweet talked Jo into doing the merge behind everyone's backs."

"So what was Joe like, was he like Kai?" Bonnie needed to know what kind of Kai she would be facing if Lucy decided to help her plead her case to the Gemini leader.

"She. Jo was short for Josette." Lucy corrected. "She was awesome, had just finished pre-med and was going to become a doctor." Lucy stared off into space for a minute, "Actually I'm pretty sure she used to visit with Sheila from time to time."

Bonnie felt her spirits rise a bit, if that were true and if he had absorbed parts of his twin's personality, then maybe he wouldn't be the same Kai that she had encountered before, and he'd be open to helping her stash Klaus.

The two cousins sat in silence for a bit, each lost in their own thoughts. "What do you think the odds are that Kai will open it up and let me toss Klaus in there?" Bonnie asked.

Lucy snorted, "You'd better have something to barter with. He doesn't really do favors for people, especially if you're not a part of his coven. I haven't heard anything too bad about him though." She leaned back to rest against the couch, "he's loosened a bit of the tight hold the elders have had on the Gemini, and made some changes in order to bring the coven into the 21st century, but from what I gather, you don't want to get on his bad side."

Bonnie thinks of the arrow through her chest, then the knife to the gut. She knew all about getting on Kai's bad side. Perhaps her best bet was to be totally open and honest about who she was and what she wanted to do. After all, she was sure many other people wanted Klaus Mikealson out of the way.

She just had to make sure that Kai, or anyone in the Gemini Coven for that matter, killed Klaus. She hadn't figured out how to delink him from his sire line just yet.

At that moment Lucy's phone rang. She looked at the display and told Bonnie she'd be back in a minute. Bonnie nodded absently and let her thoughts drift. Lucy mentioned that she needed something to barter with, and Bonnie knows that besides her knowledge of things to come, she also had one other thing to offer.

The cure.

She still had the vial that she'd acquired while she was in Nova Scotia to get the magic from Qetsiyah's rock. Plus she knew how to get the one from this world without causing the chaos that they'd done the first time around. She could offer up the one that she currently had on her, and still have the one from this time on standby just in case she needed it.

Bonnie had almost nodded off when Lucy came back. "Hey Bon." The nervousness in her voice put Bonnie on edge. "What's wrong?"

Lucy sat next to Bonnie. "So here's the thing, remember how I said the Gemini is one of the oldest covens to exist?" At Bonnie's nod, Lucy continued "Well, it's also one of the biggest. It spans most of the West Coast."

"Okay?" Bonnie raised an eyebrow.

"Well, they have wards and council members all over. The second you crossed into California, they knew it." Lucy said slowly.

"Okay." Bonnie repeated, "I'm sorry Lucy, I'm not getting why this is a big deal, I'm sure witches come and go all the time here, I mean it is California."

"Yeah, well, none of them were ever carrying the body of an original." It took a while before it sank in Bonnie's mind.

"Oh shit! I didn't even think to cloak him. I'm sorry Lucy. Are you in trouble?" Bonnie felt awful.

"No, I'm not. They know it wasn't me, but they did register it was a Bennett. That's why they called me. Long story short, we're gonna have a few visitors tomorrow."

"Do you want me to leave? I can totally leave and be out of the state by morning. I don't mean to get you mixed up in this mess." Bonnie was halfway off the couch before her cousin grabbed her hand and made her sit back down.

"Sit down before you fall down. You're not going anywhere, and besides you look dead on your feet. You're staying here until we" Lucy stressed the last word "figure out what to do."

Bonnie instantly felt like a good chunk of the weight she was carrying was lifted off her chest. "Thank you Lucy."

"Stop. I should've kept in contact more, and based off what you told me, we don't get to see each other again, so I'm taking this to be our do-over. We're Bennetts, we gotta stick together." Lucy leaned over and enveloped Bonnie in a hug. Instantly Bonnie felt the welcoming warmth of familial magic, and wanted to never leave the comfort of her cousins' arms.

"Come on, let's get you settled in. I'm sure you're beat after all you went through to get here."

Later, right as Bonnie was starting to drift off, she thought of what was happening in Mystic Falls. Her memory of this time was very fuzzy, but she knows that the pastor had probably already killed himself and the 11 other people needed to start the expression triangle.

'That's another thing that's not gonna happen.' Bonnie promises to herself. The feeling of using Expression had been a real high, but the price she paid for using it was too high. She thinks of Professor Shane and suppresses a shudder. At the time, she thought she had met someone who was interested in her and wanted to help her with regaining her magic. But like too many others, he only wanted to use her for his gain.

She turns over in bed on her side and thinks about her life up until being thrown in the prison world with Damon. She had let too many people use and warp her magic for their own gain. She knew she needed to toughen up and get better at saying no to people and meaning it.

She fell asleep with that promise in her mind.

 

**

 

The next day dawned bright and clear, and for a second Bonnie could imagine that she was just a normal girl visiting her family. No original hybrid to hide, no impending meeting with a coven that may or may not tell her to go kick rocks.

But reality set in when she realized she could hear numerous voices outside her door. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and shot out of the bed. It was almost noon! How long had they been here waiting to speak to her? And why didn't Lucy wake her?

Bonnie was frantically hunting for her clothes when there was a knock on the door, "Bon, it's me." Lucy's voice floated through the door. Bonnie opened the door wide enough to grab Lucy and bring her into the room.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Bonnie hissed. "This is not the first impression that I wanted to make!" Lucy pried Bonnie's fingers from around her upper arm. "Calm down, they literally just got here. I made the meeting for around noontime because I wanted you to get some sleep."

"Oh."

'Yeah, oh." Lucy rolled her eyes and hands Bonnie a bundle of clothes, "Here, I ran out and got these for you, pretty sure I got the size right. Feel free to use anything in the bathroom." With that, she left the room and Bonnie made her way to the bathroom to shower and change, acutely aware that in a few minutes she would be facing Kai.

Since there was no time-out in the prison world, she wondered how he would look. He'd be older, that's for sure. Since he had merged with his sister, would he still be as ruthless as he was in the prison world? Or would some of her personality have eased that blood thirsty side of him?

Finally deciding that she couldn't stall any longer she held her head high and walked out to face the music.

Upon entering the kitchen she immediately felt the gentle probing of magic. She didn't make any sudden moves and stayed still, letting it wash over her. After a few seconds, she felt the magic ease up and she took in a deep breath. She took a look around and realized that Kai wasn't among the group that had arrived.

"Come closer, child. Let me get a good look at you." This was said by the witch that was seated at the head of the table. She sat with her back ramrod straight, hair pulled back into a classic chignon. But what interested Bonnie the most were her eyes, they were a blue that she had never seen before. She held out a hand for Bonnie to take. Judging by her aura and the way the others were deferring to her, Bonnie guessed she was the one in charge.

Bonnie circled the table and held the hand that was offered to her. Almost immediately she was assaulted with images of her life prior to ending up in the prison world. She watched in fascinated horror as the woman's eyes slowly clouded over, the dazzling blue now obscured. "Oh, you've come a long way, haven't you Bonnie Bennett." Bonnie tried to pull her hand free, but soon found that the woman's grip was like steel.

"Might as well stop struggling, there's no use until she lets go." Bonnie whipped her head to the right, "Liv?" When the hell did she show up? More importantly, she was Gemini? Then that would mean….

Right on cue, Luke exited the kitchen to stand next to his twin. Bonnie shook her head in confusion. She had pretty much forgotten about the woman still gripping her hand. Bonnie thought back to all her interactions with Luke and Liv prior to ending up in the prison world, wondering if either sibling had mentioned their coven by name, but came up blank.

"Interesting." The woman murmured. Bonnie re-focused her attention and realized that if she was rifling through her memories, then she had most likely seen her prior interactions with the twins.

Okay, that was enough of that.

Bonnie finally succeeded in removing her hand from the iron grip. She stumbled back a few steps before regaining her composure.

The regal woman straightened in her chair, "I apologize for my brashness and impropriety. I had to see if what Lucille was saying was true."

"You could have just asked me. Isn't there some sort of truth spell or something?" Bonnie grumbled, cradling her sore hand to her chest.

There were snickers around the table, "There is, but you see, it wouldn't do us any good. As a Bennett witch, you'd be immune to it." This was spoken by the older man seated to the woman's right. He stood, "My name is Clarence Miller, I knew your grandmother, and may I offer my condolences on her untimely passing." He gestured to the woman, "This is Ms. Reagan Fitzwilliam-Holtz, one of the senior advisors to the Gemini." He went around the table to introduce the other people, but stopped when he got to Luke and Liv. "It seems as if you already know Lucas and Olivia." At this, they both exchanged a glance. "Pretty sure we've never met." Liv denied.

"At this point in time, no. We won't meet for a few more years." Bonnie absently said as she ran over everything Kai had told her about his family. When he described how he had rampaged through his childhood home looking for the twins that had been born to replace him and his sister, and rob him of his chance to merge.

He had never mentioned names, or if he had, she hadn't put two and two together. She studied them closely, wondering if they even knew how close they came to almost dying at the hands of their unstable oldest brother.

"How do you know when we meet?" Luke leaned forward eagerly. Bonnie opened and closed her mouth a few times, thinking of the best way to explain her predicament.

"Because she's already lived it." This was said by a woman that could have been Liz Forbes' twin sister. "Ms. Bennett has done something, by accident mind you, that only a few witches have ever managed to do successfully." She gave Bonnie another once over, "Do you understand how incredibly rare it is for someone to harness the ability to go back in time?" She sneered, "Of course you don't, you have no idea what it means to be a witch. You've mis-used your abilities to aid those blood suckers, and it seems you've been rewarded."

"Rewarded?" Bonnie echoed in disbelief "Respectfully, you have no idea what I've been through. You weren't there while we were being terrorized by Klaus. You weren't there when I had to watch as one by one, my friends were turned against their will." She never broke eye contact as she recounted how the last years played out. "I lost my grandmother, my mother was turned, also against her will, and.."

Bonnie paused before adding softly, "I was stuck on the other side watching as my father had his throat slit open in front of the entire town. All the while knowing I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it."

"Oh my God, Bonnie." She heard Lucy sniff behind her. She had shared that her dad was dead, but had glossed over the details of exactly how it happened.

"None of those things have happened yet this go round." Luke tried to soothe her.

"But they did happen!" Bonnie rounded on him. "Just because I somehow have managed to go back in time, does not erase the fact that I have all those memories just running around in my head."

She turned to address the other council members. "I am trying to not make the same mistakes, I am trying to make better choices, and not fall into the same traps. I know that I can't do this alone, I know that I need help, and that's why I'm here."

She meets Reagan's eyes, "If you say no, I will accept that, and figure something out. I will respect your decision, but I really hope we can work together."

There is silence in the room until she sees Reagan give a nod to Clarence. He stands and sweeps a bow at Bonnie, "Well, Miss Bennett, it has been an honor to meet you, we will take your request for assistance to the remaining council members. As a gesture of good-will, the Gemini will take over cloaking the hybrids body until a decision has been made."

Bonnie looked to Lucy in confusion, this is it? She was expecting a long drawn out process. She felt a whisper of magic and when she turned to look at the table again, it was empty, only she and Lucy remained. No more than a minute had passed before she felt more of her magic being returned to her. The Gemini were keeping their word about taking over cloaking Klaus.

Bonnie sighed in relief, "Okay, that was quick. I thought that would take longer."

"It helps when someone like Reagan can look into your mind, it's a quick way to see if the person is lying." Lucy explained.

"How can they tell if I'm telling the truth or if I'm just projecting something that I wanted them to see?"

Lucy let out a huff of laughter, "Other witches would know how to do that, but they know you aren't that skilled. You have practically no shield around your mind, you're basically an open book, cuz."

"Oh. Can you teach me? I don't like the idea of people being able to just root around in my mind." Bonnie shuddered as she remembered how Silas used to do that exact thing.

"Of course." Lucy threw an arm around Bonnie's neck. "We're gonna get you caught up. You'll be a proper Bennett witch in no time."

The rest of the day was spent on what Lucy proclaimed was learning the basics. How to shield your mind, how to channel from nature, and so on. Bonnie was an eager pupil. She had to brush aside anger a few times, wondering why her Grams didn't start her learning about her abilities sooner rather than later.

When Bonnie crawled into bed that night she was drained and exhausted, but happy. Learning magic when there were no lives on the line was actually fun. Bonnie fell asleep hoping the Gemini would take a few days to come to a decision, she didn't want to leave and go back to what she knew would be a huge mess in Mystic Falls.

 

**

 

Bonnie's eyes shot open.

She laid there just breathing for a minute, not sure what jolted her from sleep. The clock on the night stand read 2:20. After tossing and turning for a half hour, she figured some tea might help her sleep. She made her way into the kitchen, being careful to only turn on the light over the stove, no need to wake Lucy just because she couldn't sleep. Soon enough, the whistle of the kettle snapped her out of her daydreams and she poured the water into the mugs.

Wait, mugs? Why had she taken out two? Unaware that she had spoken out loud, Bonnie jumped as a voice answered. "Well, I thought that you had realized that I was here, and the second one was for me."

Bonnie felt her heart drop. How had she not sensed that someone else was in the room? And not just 'someone', the person she had been dreading seeing the most. She reached over to turn on the overhead kitchen light.

"Nice to meet you Bonnie Bennett, although I've been told we've met before."


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, not really, no. At least not yet?" Bonnie stumbled over her words. The man that sat at Lucy's table smiled, but Bonnie noticed it didn't reach his eyes. "So how about you fill me in? It's not every day that we get a witch, a Bennett even, cross into Gemini territory with Klaus Mikealson in a coffin." His voice was deeper than the boy that had left her behind, his face older and more defined, stubble helping to accentuate his ruggedness. But his eyes were the same blue/grey that she remembered. Kai was good looking as a 22 year old, but here and now closer to his actual age, even though the years must have been demanding, he wore it extremely well.

"I'm sorry for bringing Klaus in your territory, I wasn't thinking." She began. He waved off her apology, "I'm not asking for an apology, I want to know what you were planning on doing with him once you got here."

"I don't know." Bonnie admitted. She saw his eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. "I'm not lying to you! I really didn't have a plan in mind. I just knew I couldn't let everything play out like it did before."

"And how did it play out before?"

Bonnie opened and closed her mouth a few times, wondering how to explain the utter madness that was the past few years of her life. "Not well." She finished lamely.

"Great detail there, Bonster." He chuckled.

Bonnie physically recoiled, "What is it with you and that name?"

"I've called you that before?" His eyes searched her face. Bonnie knew that look, he was looking for a weakness, something to use to his advantage.

"You know what? Screw it, can you do that thing Reagan did? With the being able to see my memories?" At his nod, Bonnie walked over and held her hand out, "Do it."

He hesitated, "Are you sure? It might hurt."

Bonnie lifted an eyebrow, "You've siphoned me before, shot me with an arrow, and stabbed me in the gut. I'm good."

"What?"

"In all fairness, I did send a pick axe through your chest, and kill you with a pen so….." Bonnie shrugged. "We doing this or not?"

He looked at her for a silent minute, then directed her to have a seat, "Might as well be comfortable."

She sat and held her hand out again, "I'll let you see as much as you need to, but please don't go poking around unnecessarily. I don't have anything to hide, but certain memories are special to me."

"Duly noted."

With that he wrapped his hands around hers, Bonnie braced herself for the pain that came with him siphoning her, but it never came. Instead it was more like a gentle tugging. She saw as they flashed through her early years, only slowing down when it came to when she first saw Stefan.

Bit by bit he walked through her first few years of being a witch:

Losing her grandmother

Meeting Lucy for the first time

Taking on the power of 100 witches to defeat Klaus

Pleading with her ancestors to bring Jeremy back to life

Tracking down Abby, seeing her be turned, then leave once more

Desiccating Klaus, and fighting hunter Alaric

Putting Klaus in Tylers body to keep her friends alive

Try to prevent Elena from turning, only to see her grandmother's soul be tormented as a result

Losing access to her magic, meeting Professor Shane, him teaching her Expression

The search for the cure, freeing Silas

Dying to bring Jeremy back

Her father's death, and her inability to do anything to stop it

Becoming the anchor, destroying the other side

Her and Damon entering the prison world

Meeting Kai, getting her magic back, sending Damon back home

Kai kidnapping her and bringing her to Portland, stabbing her, then leaving

Her suicide attempt

Finding the map, heading to Nova Scotia

Standing in the cave, ready to leave

Landing three years in the past

Bonnie's eyes were full of unshed tears when he released her hand. Standing on shaky legs, he excused herself to go to the bathroom. When she came out, he was still sitting in the same spot, processing what he saw.

Bonnie dumped out her now cold tea and started making another cup. She heard Kai clear his throat, but refused to turn and look.

"Okay, that was…. How are you not bat-shit crazy?"

Bonnie choked out a watery laugh, "I'm not so sure I'm not."

He shifted in his seat, "So, I think I know what you want to do with Klaus, but I need to hear you say it."

Bonnie turned around, "I didn't get the idea until I came here. But, is there any way you can place him in a prison world? I know Elijah, and even as we speak, he's probably got witches under his control trying to find out where he is."

"Why not just kill him?"

"Well, leverage for one. It'll be much easier to keep the rest of them in line if they ever want to be reunited with their brother. And second-"

"If you kill an original, there goes their entire sire line." He finished for her.

"Yeah." Bonnie took a sip of her tea, "I don't know how to unlink him from his line, and honestly, it will also keep a few vampires that I know in line as well." Thinking of Damon and his impulsiveness. If he ever caught wind of the fact that Klaus and the others were ever de-linked from their respective sire lines, he would be on the warpath to kill them regardless of if the rest of Klaus's family left them alone.

Which would cause the remaining originals to retaliate, and start up the whole cycle of madness all over again.

"If I say yes, what's in it for me?" He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. Bonnie noted off-handedly that he had nice arms, muscular with a light dusting of dark hair. "If I'm not allowed to kill him, what would I gain by having Klaus Mikealson stashed away?"

"The knowledge that he can't make any more hybrids, and the fact that he won't be free to wreak havoc anywhere." Bonnie could see that wasn't going to be enough, so she decided to play her trump card. "I can also give you the cure."

That got his attention. "That is a pretty hefty bargaining chip, Bonnie. Why would you give something like that up so easily? Unless you have more stashed away somewhere."

"I don't have more stashed away, what I have now is what I brought back with me. But, I do know where it is, and how to retrieve it. Plus, doesn't the prison world re-set every day? You can have an unending supply at your fingertips."

He leaned back in his chair, face unreadable. Bonnie hoped he would go for it, because if he didn't, she didn't have a backup plan and she did not want to end up like Katherine, always on the run, trying to stay two steps ahead of Elijah.

He suddenly broke out in a grin, dimples on full display. "You are Sheila's granddaughter after all."

Bonnie felt hope bloom in her chest, "You'll do it?" When he nodded, she surprised herself, and him she supposed, when she burst into tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just…I didn't have a backup plan, and I had no idea if this was even going to work, and, God. Thank you, Kai."

He looked extremely uncomfortable with her emotional outburst. "Yeah well, don't thank me yet. There's still a few things we need to iron out, plus I want more information on the Travelers that will be popping up soon."

Bonnie nodded eagerly, "Okay, yeah I'll you whatever you wanna know." She sat down at the table again, feeling overjoyed that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

**

Three days later…

Bonnie crept next to the bed, "Care, Care. Wake up." She gently nudged her sleeping friend. Caroline moaned, and swatted at her. "Go 'way. Let me sleep." Bonnie frowned before giving her a more vigorous shake. "Wake up, Caroline."

Her blond friend groaned, "Seriously, Bonnie? What the hell-" She cut herself off and sat straight up. "BONNIE! Oh my God, where have you been? I've been worried sick! Where did you go, are you okay?"

Bonnie struggled to free herself from Caroline's bear hug. "Can't breathe, can't breathe, Caro." She felt her friends grip ease, but not completely letting her go. "Where were you? You and Klaus disappeared and things here have been crazy! There's hunter who shot Tyler with wooden bullets, an-"

"Care! I know, but I need to ask you a question." Bonnie looked her in the eyes, "There is no right or wrong answer, I will love you regardless, and I'm sorry to rush you, but I need an answer tonight."

"Okay." Bonnie could tell her friend was confused. "What's the question?"

"If you had the chance to be human again, would you?" Caroline's eyes widened, "I know it's a loaded question, and like I said, I need an answer pretty much within the next hour."

"Why the urgency? Bonnie, what happened to you?"

"I don't have time to go through the whole thing tonight, but I need an answer Care." Bonnie took the vampire's hands. "I know I was an absolute bitch to you when you first turned. I was still so mad about my Grams dying and so pissed at all the crap happening all around me."

Bonnie looked down at the colorful bedsheets, "I spent a lot of time blaming myself for your death and being turned. I tried so hard to look for a way to undo it. I swore that once I found a way, I'd give it to you." She looked up to meet her childhood friends' eyes, "I thought you becoming a vampire meant that my best friend, one of my oldest friends was gone. But it didn't, you handled it like a pro, and I've never been more proud of you." Bonnie sniffed and blinked hard to hold back the tears.

"You found a way?" Carolines voice was small.

"I….made a deal. I found a way, and it's only fair that since you never got a say in your turning, that you get to decide whether or not you want to stay a vampire, or go back to being human again. Like I said, there are no wrong answers, you're stuck with me regardless." She squeezed her hands. "But I wanted to give you the first shot, because you were the first to go through it."

She glanced at the clock, "Shit, I gotta get going. Will you meet me at my dad's place in about a half hour?"

"No." Bonnie frowned in confusion at the word. "You're not invited into my Gram's place, Care. I can't bring you there-"

"No, I mean." Caroline took a deep breath, "I don't want it. I want to stay a vampire." She jumped off the bed and began pacing, "I know it probably sounds like I'm being ungrateful. I love you for offering it to me first, you have no idea how much I appreciate that. But, I'm stronger now. I like how I feel and I like who I am now. I don't want to go back to who I was." She paused, "Do you hate me?"

Bonnie surge off the bed and enveloped Caroline in her arms. "I told you, no right or wrong answers. I figured you'd say no, but I wanted to give you the option. I love you, silly. All parts. Human, vampire, makes no difference to me, your heart is the same, that's all I care about."

The two girls stayed locked in an embrace, tears rolling down their cheeks. Bonnie pulled away first, "I'm sorry to breakup this love fest, but I still gotta go get-"

"Tyler?" Caroline guessed.

"Actually, no. I ran into him earlier and told him to meet me at my dad's place. He doesn't know why yet, so if you make it there before I do, you can fill him in."

"Okay." Caroline zipped off to her bathroom.

Half an hour later, Bonnie pulled up to her dad's house.

"Are you sure about this?" The question was asked in a whisper.

Bonnie turned to face her mother. "This will work, it helps that all of you were turned recently, so we don't have to worry about anyone dropping dead from old age."

Caroline was at her car door in an instant, "Abby? Oh my God, is that Elena?"

"Yeah, I had to knock out Damon and Stefan, then her, just to get her to come." Bonnie complained.

"Why?"

"Because she refused to leave without them, and this won't work with them." Bonnie said.

"Okay that was cryptic as hell." Tyler reached in and carried Elena's body inside to lay on the couch, while Caroline and Abby brought in various bags and groceries. Bonnie gave Elena a magical nudge to wake her up, and they all congregated around the kitchen table as Abby busied herself in the kitchen. Bonnie explained what the cure was and how it worked, as well as the downsides to taking it.

"So that's why you can't give it to Damon and Stefan." Understanding dawned on Elena's face. Bonnie nodded, "There's no way for the both of them to take it, and it seems really cruel to have make them decide between themselves, so they're out."

"So what am I supposed to tell them when they see I'm human again? I can't lie to them." Elena said.

"Nothing. As soon as you take it, and we know it works, I'll be taking your memories." Bonnie revealed.

"What? Why!" Elena demanded.

"To protect myself, Elena." Bonnie snapped. "You just said you can't lie to them, how long do you think you'd be able to keep this a secret?"

"And how long before they tell someone outside of Mystic Falls?" Tyler added, "Bonnie is the only witch here, it won't take someone with half a brain long to put two and two together. She would become a target for any and every stray vamp that came through looking to become human again."

"Sure, they'll know something happened because, hello human again, but they won't know the specifics. Even if we're compelled by the originals." Caroline turned to Bonnie, "Matter of fact, take my memories too, I don't want to be a liability to you."

Tyler nodded in agreement, "Me too. This is huge Bon, no way am I gonna be the weak link that puts you in danger."

Bonnie shot a grateful smile to the couple, "Thanks, guys. I really do appreciate it." Elena still looked like she wanted to argue, but gave up when she realized the whole table, along with Abby from the kitchen, were waiting on her to agree. "Fine, sure. It's not like I have a choice, anyway."

"You can always say no, Elena." Abby said walking out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee and mugs on a tray, "After all, it's not like Bonnie is going to creep up behind you and shove it down your throat without your permission, causing your life to be irrevocably changed." She offered her a mug, "Coffee or hot chocolate?"

"Savage." Caroline didn't even try to hide her laugh.

"Okay, enough talking, let's do this." Tyler led the way into the living room while Bonnie took a minute to reinforce the wards she had around the house. She would be keeping them all inside for a few days until she was sure the cure worked. Caroline had volunteered to stay and help just in case something was needed.

Since Caroline had turned it down, Tyler would be the first to take it. When she walked into the living room, she saw he had commandeered the couch as his resting point. "We have the room upstairs if you wanna lay in an actual bed." Bonnie offered. He shook his head, "Nah, I'm good here, thanks. The last time I was in a bedroom in your house.."

He trailed off as he remembered Abby was in the room. As in Bonnie's estranged mother. "We did nothing but homework." He finished hastily. Abby rolled her eyes, as Caroline and Elena shared a laugh.

Bonnie produced the vial out of thin air, "Bottoms up, Lockwood."

"See you on the other side, Bennett." He fisted the vial and downed it in one shot. "Ugh, that tastes like ass." He grimaced as Caroline flashed over to the curio cabinet and brought out Rudy's scotch that he liked to indulge in every now and then. Tyler drank almost the whole bottle before he laid back.

"You're buying my dad a new bottle." Bonnie scolded, already dreading the lecture on the dangers of teenage drinking.

Tyler started to laugh but then started gasping for breath. They all watched in suspense as his eyes glowed yellow, and he shot off the couch heading straight for the door.

"Don't let him get outside!" Bonnie yelled.

Between the three vampires and Bonnie's magic, they managed to subdue Tyler once more. He writhed on the couch shifting between wolf and human. It took almost an hour before he simply dropped down into a deep sleep.

**

The next 8 or so hours were spent waiting for him to wake up while indulging in a Netflix marathon.

The three girls also took the time to have a much needed no-holds-barred conversation with each other. More than once Abby had to step in and be the voice of reason when tempers flared and feelings were hurt.

"And then, on top of it all, you wanted to give Klaus's body back to Elijah! What the actual fuck Elena?" Bonnie yelled.

"I was thinking of us! If we gave Klaus back then they wouldn't have any reason to stay!" Elena defended.

Caroline huffed out a laugh, "Oh please, you were thinking with your p-"

"HEY!" Abby stepped in. "Who wants cookies?"

**

"I am always on the outside! Neither of you let me in on what was going on until I died!" Caroline slammed her mug down. "I was being abused by Damon, you two knew about it and didn't do a damn thing to help me."

"And then" She rounded on Bonnie, "You shut me out right when I was turned. I needed you, I needed my best friend, but all you could focus on was you!"

"Well, shit. Somebody had to! It was like once you turned everyone forgot about my Grams dying and my feelings. All everyone wanted was for me to pull a magical solution out of my ass for everything!"

"You think you're so high and mighty." Elena tossed out, "Judging everyone when they don't meet your high expectations. You're not perfect, Bonnie. Remember when you didn't disarm the device? How many people died because of that?"

"Oh, you mean the device that had to be used to corral all the tomb vampires that escaped because we kept the tomb open to get Damon and Stefan out because you begged us to? That device?" Bonnie snarked. "Yeah, I remember that." She waved an arm in Caroline's direction, "Every single time I look at Caroline, I remember that. Do you remember when you turned Damon down and he snapped Jeremy's neck right in front of you?"

"He was wearing the ring!" Elena defended.

"Damon didn't know that!" Bonnie and Caroline shouted in unison.

**

"Why do you care what happens to Jeremy anyway? You dumped him at the first sign of him not meeting your high expectations." Elena sneered.

"Oh I'm sorry, is expecting my boyfriend not to cheat on me a high expectation? My bad, let me lower the bar," Bonnie pretended to think, "what's Stefan doing Saturday night? He may be a ripper, but I think I can trust him to be faithful."

Elena scoffed, "You're not his type."

"Yeah, Bonnie you need to have that generic doppelgänger look going on." Caroline called out.

"Hey! At least I don't have to worry about Bonnie chasing after my leftovers." Elena volleyed back.

"Did you just call Matt leftovers?" Bonnie giggled. Which set the other two off as well. Abby walked around the corner to see all three in a heap on the floor, various "I'm so sorry's" and "I love you guys" being thrown around. She shook her head and went back to her room.

Being a teenage girl was hard enough without the supernatural adding to it.

***

When Tyler finally woke up, they were all emotionally drained. Bonnie poured him a drink and mixed it with vervain to see if he really was cured of his vampirism. He drank it all down with no problem, on a whim she also gave him a bit of wolfs bane. To everyone's surprise, his only reaction was a slight itching, like an allergic reaction.

"I think it cured your wolf side as well." Bonnie said in amazement, "I mean, we'll probably have to wait until the next full moon to be sure, but I think you're back to pre-breaking your curse, Tyler."

"Seriously?" Bonnie couldn't tell if he was happy or not. It was like the damn Gilbert device all over again. Of course then, they'd had no idea werewolves even existed, but it was another kick to the stomach that instead of helping him, Bonnie may have hurt him once more.

"Tyler, I-" Bonnie started to apologize.

"Stop. We don't know for sure. Let's keep going for now." She nodded then turned to Elena, "You're next."

Everyone held their breath while she sank her fangs into Tyler's neck. Once Tyler passed out from the blood loss, Elena drew back. "Whoa." She dropped like a stone.

Caroline and Abby carried Tyler to the guest room, while Bonnie sat on the floor next to the couch. Abby came back downstairs and sat in the loveseat across from the couch. "Well, it seems like I missed a lot while I was gone." Referencing all that she'd overheard the girls say.

"Tends to happen when you just up and leave like that." Bonnie said softly.

"I know my reason for leaving might seem flimsy and self-serving." She paused at Bonnie's raised eyebrows, "Okay it was flimsy and self-serving, but I am sorry, Bonnie. I really did think you'd be better off without me."

"Why? I just want to know why, really. That whole thing with Mikael and draining your magic, I get that can be hard to take, but you could have come back and lived a mundane life. Why didn't you?"

"I never wanted to be a witch, much less a 'Bennett Witch'." Abby sighed, eyes growing unfocused as she thought back. "Your grams was a legend, I mean she had a way about her that made people sit up and take notice. I was gifted, yes. But nothing like her." She glanced at Bonnie, "Or you. Even as a baby, you were highly intuitive, and I could just feel what you'd become. Mom had already started doing little spells around you, and you were just enraptured by magic.

I didn't want a life of magic. Not for me, or for you. But every time I attempted to ease you away from it, you would cry for days, and be so inconsolable that I couldn't help but bring you back to it. You'd already bonded with your magic, and there wasn't a thing I could do to separate you. You knew what you wanted, and it wasn't me or the quiet mundane life that I craved."

She focused on the far wall, "I was actually grateful that putting Mikael down depleted my magic. I had the perfect excuse to stop practicing and live how I wanted. I was sorry to leave you, but deep down, I think I was more relieved than sorry." She focused on her daughter, "So there you have it. I'll understand if you change your mind about letting me have the cure. Sometimes I think being turned was the spirits way of punishing me for turning my back on family and I'll accept the consequences, come what may."

She stood up to go back into the kitchen, "If I can add one thing? You have a lot here Bonnie. I listened to everything you girls talked about, and yes, some of it was downright cruel and mean. But what I noticed is they didn't leave you. Especially Caroline when she was turned. She had every right to never forgive how you treated her, but she stayed. She kept trying, because you are that important to her. Elena is more complicated, but she's trying as well. It may not look like it from where you're sitting, but she's being pulled in so many directions, and wants to do what's best for everyone. Sometimes what's best for one person, ends up hurting others. You're all young, you need to give yourselves enough time to grow."

Bonnie rose and went to her room. Her head was aching and she had a lot to think about going forward. She stopped to check in on Tyler and Caroline and found them both fast asleep, curled around each other. Seeing the couple seek solace in each other just reminded Bonnie of how alone she was most days. Her father was usually gone, her mother would be leaving after this, both of her best friends were in relationships. She decided then and there to broaden her social circle, picking up her phone she replied to the invitation she had received from Kai. Within a minute, he texted back "smart choice, kid."

**

When Elena woke, they did the vervain test, as well as removing her daylight ring and having her walk around outside in the sun. She was overjoyed, scooping Bonnie up in a hug so tight it rivaled Caroline's.

"I love you so much Bonnie Sheila Bennett! I swear from now on, I'll do better to be more considerate of your feelings."

"I'll try not to be so high and mighty and lower my expectations." Bonnie teased.

"I'll try not to be so fabulous as to overshadow you two." Caroline added. Elena exchanged a look with Bonnie, the girls moved in tandem to the fluffy pillows that decorated the couch and commenced a pillow fight to end all pillow fights.

"All right! Pillow fight." Tyler called out from the top of the stairs.

They all agreed to stay for support when Abby took the cure from Elena. Somehow Caroline had found a game of monopoly hidden somewhere and badgered them into playing.

4 hours later and Bonnie remembered why the game was hidden.

**

Abby sailed through with no issues. That night before they all went to sleep, using a spell that was borrowed from the Gemini, Bonnie proceeded to pull the last 3 days from everybody's mind except Abby. No one except Jamie knew what happened, and Abby rarely associated with anyone supernatural, so Bonnie didn't have to worry about her spilling the beans.

The next morning was a bit chaotic as her friends had obviously forgotten not only that she had returned, but why they were at her house at all. Bonnie sat them all down and over breakfast gave them the story she had come up with to explain her whereabouts for the last 2 weeks.

She's not sure they bought it, but her mysterious disappearance and return was overshadowed by the fact that both Elena and Tyler were both 100% human, along with the fact that Klaus was gone for good. Caroline called Matt and Jeremy over, and for a while it felt like they were all just normal teenagers.

Bonnie was putting the food away in the fridge when Elena approached her, "I don't know what you did, but thank you. I didn't know how I was going to survive being a vampire, but now I don't have to! I'm heading over to the boarding house to tell Stefan and Damon."

Matt's hug lifted her off her feet, "Thank you for whatever you did." Bonnie pulled back a bit, "You know what happened wasn't your fault, right? Stop blaming yourself, and if anyone has anything to say about it, tell them to meet me outside." Matt laughed and set her down before leaving to drop Elena off at the boarding house before his shift started.

The rest of the group trickled out and soon it was just Bonnie again. "Home sweet Home."

***

"All I'm saying witchy, is that it's suspect as hell that you all managed to graduate on time. I mean, exactly how much school did you miss when you were recovering from that spell to take out that shapeshifter?"

"I made all that time up!" Bonnie exclaimed. "I didn't need to have anyone compelled in order to graduate, thank you very much." Bonnie hitched her box higher, "And why do you need me to help you carry these? You're a vampire, could have sworn extra strength came with the fangs."

"You were the slowest to say not it. I don't make the rules, be faster next time." Damon tossed out.

"Jackass." Bonnie muttered. Soon they had everything packed into the SUV. It was graduation day and save a few hiccups along the way, they all managed to finish their high school career without raising Silas, dropping the veil, or Bonnie dying again.

That's not to say they didn't have issues, there was still the council to deal with, as well as the hunter that had come to target vampires specifically. Professor Shane still tried to sway Bonnie to learn expression, but one phone call to the Gemini had him suddenly resigning his position and moving elsewhere. Plus the originals, well Elijah truthfully, were a constant shadow over Mystic Falls. He was convinced that the disappearance of Klaus and Bonnie at the same time was no mere coincidence, but was unable to prove anything.

"Why are we stopping?" Bonnie whined as they pulled up to the store. "We have enough food and drinks at the cabin, come on let's go."

"Calm down, I just need to pick up something real quick." The got out of the car bickering like usual. They had only taken a few steps when an SUV with blacked out windows stopped in front of them. The back passenger window rolled down, and a familiar face emerged. "Congratulations."

Bonnie stopped walking. "Thanks." Bonnie said slowly, "What are you doing here?"

Kai shrugged, his eyes hidden by his aviator sunglasses. "I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd stop by while I was here and pick you up."

"I literally just graduated." Bonnie informed him.

"Yeah, I saw. Red is your color, Bonster."

Bonnie felt a blush spread across her cheeks, "You were there?"

"Like I said, I was in the neighborhood." He opened the door and patted the seat next to him, "Hop in."

"Umm, she's not hopping anywhere. Who are you?" She'd forgotten about Damon standing next to her.

"None of your business, that's who." Bonnie felt Damon scoff next to her. "Well I'm about to make it my business."

"Okay, that's enough." Bonnie threw out a hand to stop Damon from charging the vehicle. She knew this Kai would kill him and not even blink. She walked closer to the vehicle, even though she knew Damon would be listening anyway. "Can you give me a day?" She asked.

"Trying to back out of our deal?" He leaned closer.

Bonnie bristled, "No. I will keep my word. Just….can I have one day to celebrate that we made it to graduation without me dying?"

"It's better this way, trust me. No long drawn out goodbyes, no tearful 'call me every week'." He raised his voice to sound mocking. Bonnie grimaced, "Fine. You don't have to be an ass about it." She stepped back and looked at Damon. He was already shaking his head. "No way witchy, I'm not letting you leave with him."

There was a bark of laughter from the vehicle, "Let her!"

"Not helping." Bonnie said through clenched teeth. She grabbed Damon and walked a few steps away. "Remember when you asked about how Klaus and what being able to change Elena back cost me? This is it. I made a deal, and I will honor that deal." She poked his chest with a finger, "You will go back and tell them…..tell them that Abby came back. Tell them she had some sort of motherly urge, and I'm going to be with her all summer long."

Damon frowned, "Come on, that's not even believable." Bonnie wanted to laugh until she cried. "Yes it is, wanna know why? Because you will sell it like it's the truth. I need you to do this for me. I'll be back by the time classes start at Whitmore." She started walking back to the SUV, the back door now being held open by Kai.

"Hey!" He flicks his eyes in Kai's direction, "There better not be a hair out of place when she gets back. She may be a pain in the ass, but she's our pain in the ass."

"Careful Damon. I might start to think you actually care." She repeats the line she tossed out years ago.

He smiled softly, "We wouldn't want that."

She took Kai's hand and jumped into the backseat, scooting over to give him room. Kai jumped in and rubbed his hands together.

"So, who's ready for a summer of fun at magic camp?"


	3. Chapter 3

"So how was magic camp?"

Bonnie jumped as Damon appeared from seemingly nowhere. "God! You're like the pop-up book from hell!" The vampire simply smiled at her.

She took a quick look around before she answered, "It was fine."

"Relax, witchy. It's just the two of us here." He reclined on Elena's bed. "So, you gonna explain what that was all about?"

"I already told you. I made a deal." Bonnie went back to arranging the books in her bookcase.

"A deal to get rid of Klaus?" He shifted on the bed, "Or a deal to change Elena and Tyler back?"

"Yes." Bonnie answered. "Why are you so nosy today?"

"Just curious. I had the whole summer to think about how a coven as old as the Gemini would even be interested in what was going on in little ol Mystic Falls." Bonnie felt her heart skip as Damon mentioned the Gemini by name. How the hell had he found out? "The Gemini don't actively recruit, they're pretty secretive. But you somehow not only caught the attention of the coven, but their leader as well." He continued.

"I'm a Bennett witch. Sheila Bennett's granddaughter." She turned to pin Damon with a stare "One of the only practicing Bennett witches left." He briefly looked away. "It's not hard to guess why they would have me on their radar."

"What happened when I left you in the storage locker?" It wasn't the first time it had been brought up, but it was the first time that Damon had outright asked her what went on that night.

"Leave it alone, Damon." Bonnie moved to arranging the pictures on her wall. She felt a gust of air, and soon Damon was beside her.

"I would love to, but there's something not adding up about that night, and the two weeks you were gone." Icy blue eyes met stubborn green. "There is something different about you."

"Leave it alone, Damon." Bonnie repeated. "I figured you'd be happy, you got what you wanted. Klaus is gone, Elena is safe and a human again. You finally got the girl, and you spent the whole summer thinking about me?" Bonnie decided to go on the offensive. "How is your brother by the way? Will he be joining us for college, or is he skipping it altogether?"

This close Bonnie could see the guilt and defensiveness in Damon's eyes, and almost felt bad for him. For everything that had changed, Elena had still chosen to break up with Stefan and spend her summer with Damon. Her phone calls and letters were spent half crying about hurting Stefan, but also admitting to having the summer of her life with Damon. It was exhausting, especially since Bonnie had had a front row to the show before she did her little time travel trick.

Stefan had understandably moved out of the boarding house, and according to Caroline (who was the only one who had constant contact with him) he was out traveling the U.S. No one knew if he would be back, but she assured Bonnie that he was working through his issues at his own speed.

"Low blow, Bennett." Damon finally replied.

"Learn when to back off, Salvatore."

The door opened then and her roommates entered, Caroline chatting a mile a minute while holding a box. "Someone left you a gift, Bonnie." Caroline exclaimed. Elena settled on her bed and within a heartbeat Damon was sitting beside her. "You've only been here a week, and already getting gifts?" Elena wiggled her eyebrows, "Wonder who it's from?" She teased.

"Yeah Witchy, open it up." Damon joined in.

Bonnie rolled her eyes before waving a hand lazily and watching as the box popped open and out floated a few notebooks and Grimoires. Bonnie guided them over to her and was pleased to see they were the specific ones that she had requested. Information on the travelers, as well as the Augustine Society. Since Bonnie already knew bits and pieces, it had been decided that she would need to get spun up on the Travelers and Augustine lore so she could help Luke and Liv keep an eye on things.

As soon as she placed the books in her bookshelf, the box itself folded in on itself until it was no bigger than a post-it, then disappeared with a poof.

All three vampires' mouths dropped open in shock. Caroline was the first to recover and shrieked in delight, "Did you learn how to do that over the summer?"

"Yes, Bonnie. Please enlighten us mere mortals, well, immortals on your new tricks." Damon sat back with a shit eating grin.

Bonnie lifted a shoulder, "Abby may not practice anymore, but she's still a Bennett witch. She took me around to a few other covens and it was basically magic camp." Using Damon's words specifically, so the next time he mentioned it, Bonnie wouldn't have to mention the Gemini.

"That must have been so cool!" Both Caroline and Elena started peppering her with questions. Since she had been back, Bonnie had been a little tight lipped about her summer away. The other girls hadn't wanted to pry, given the shaky nature of the relationship between mother and daughter, but since Bonnie opened the floodgates, they figured it was safe to talk about.

"So, tell me about the guys." Typical Caroline, Bonnie stifled a smile. "Were there any male witches that caught your attention? Wait, are they called witches too?" She tilted her head in confusion.

"They're called Warlocks, I think." Elena offered helpfully, looking to Bonnie for confirmation.

"Yeah, they're called Warlocks, and they're like every other guy out there, they just can do magic, too." Bonnie wanted to sound nonchalant so neither girl would pick-up anything.

"Seriously? There were none that you wanted to 'practice magic with'?" Caroline's expression let Bonnie know exactly what kind of magic Caroline was thinking of. "I know they must have been lining up for you."

Bonnie plopped on her bed, "Not for the right reasons. I'm a Bennett. One of the last. They didn't want me, they wanted my magic and my name. No thanks."

Elena frowned, "I'm sure that wasn't the case all the time. Look at you! You're the whole package! Anyone should be happy you even look their way! Including my idiot brother." She mumbled under her breath.

"Praise." Caroline threw a hand up in solidarity.

"Okay, that's enough estrogen for me. I'm heading out." Damon heaved himself off the bed. "Glad to have you back witchy. It was just a bit quiet without you yammering in my ear."

"Get bent, Damon." Bonnie replied sweetly as she waved her hand again and suddenly he found himself on the other side of the door.

"Okay, we are doing that every time he comes over, right?" Caroline asked.

***

 

Bonnie quickly settled into a routine at Whitmore. Getting her General Education credits out the way was a little boring, she couldn't wait to start classes more focused on her major in Anthropology. Her minor was in Occult Studies, and even though the class was normally not offered to freshmen nor sophomores, due to not only her grandmother once teaching the course, but the new instructor being Alaric, Bonnie was able to gain a seat.

She wasn't the only freshmen to take advantage of their hook-up, though. Tyler surprised everyone when he sauntered into the classroom as well.

"Move over, Bennett." He stood at the end of the row.

"Make me." Bonnie stuck out her tongue. Which was in retrospect the wrong thing to do. Tyler sighed as he set down his backpack and lifted Bonnie from her seat to place her in the next empty one, which happened to be next to Liv's seat.

"Jokes on you, I wanted to sit here all along." That got a smattering of laughs out of the students that were already seated. Bonnie wondered why Tyler had signed up for this course, until Alaric said that they would start first with werewolf lore. Bonnie cast a side eye in Tyler's direction. He shrugged and sent her a grin.

Then his gaze slipped past Bonnie to focus on Liv.

"No." Bonnie whispered in his direction, knowing he could hear her. He held up his hands in a 'what' gesture. Bonnie regarded him sternly until he looked away. They both quickly got engrossed in the lecture.

The matter was tabled until they met up for their monthly Denny's run later that week. .

 

**

Since taking he cure, he no longer was required to shift, but still chose to do so and run with his pack back just outside of Mystic Falls. Bonnie accompanied him as often as she could, to not only keep an eye on him, but to also make sure the boundaries that were set were adhered to. With the help of the local pack, they had drawn borders that let the wolves run free while not going into town. No needing to chain themselves up in basements or cages.

It also gave her a chance to let her magic run free and she took full advantage of her time waiting for Tyler to come back to test out whatever new spells, potions, or even just focus on her schoolwork. Afterwards, many of them would congregate at Denny's to eat enough to replace all the energy that was spent shifting and running around in wolf form.

More often than not, Bonnie would join them. She enjoyed being around Tyler's wolf pack, it felt like being welcomed into a family. She supposes it was because of her knowing Tyler her whole life, and knowing the effect that it had on Caroline, but she honestly couldn't imagine booting him from her life just because he was a wolf.

"She's a witch, Ty." Bonnie revealed

"Oh," he scratched his head, "Is that kind of forbidden or something?"

"Some covens, don't like when witches mix with wolves, or vamps, or anything else really." Bonnie tried to let him down easy.

"Do you know her coven, are they like that?" Bonnie watched as he downed plate after plate of waffles while she thought about his question. The night crew at Denny's by now was well used to the group coming in by now. They always made sure to be nice and courteous and to tip extra heavily for all the workers efforts.

"I don't know, and honestly I really wanna be left out of this, but the only reason I'm telling you this is because…" Bonnie paused and pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. Tyler looked at the paper, then looked at Bonnie, who knocked on the table, "It's her number, dumbass. She asked me to give it to you." Tyler's smile lit up the room, and for a second, Bonnie was reminded of the 5 year old that beamed with pride when Bonnie sat next to him on the playground and declared them to be 'the bestest of friends'.

"Oh God, stop." Bonnie took another drink of her coffee.

"Oh don't worry Bon, we'll find someone for you. Someone that likes live girls." Instead of ducking the piece of pancake Bonnie threw at him, he caught it with his mouth and chewed noisily.

"I need new friends." Bonnie said as she leaned back in the booth.

**

 

Even though she had school to focus on, and her new arrangement with the Gemini, Bonnie hadn't forgotten about the Augustine Society that was still experimenting on vampires. She had returned to her Grams place to search through her grimoires and notebooks to see if Sheila had written anything down about them. Luke had decided to tag along, citing that since his boyfriend would be busy that weekend being on call, he had nothing else planned. Bonnie suspected it was partly to keep an eye on her, per Kai's orders, and partly because Liv would be hanging out with Tyler.

"So my brother wants to know if we've heard anything new on the Traveler situation." Bonnie looks over at Luke who's currently sprawled out on her couch pretending to study, but she knows he's really texting (probably sexting) his boyfriend.

Part of her agreement with the Gemini was to provide them information on the Travelers and to help keep an eye on the doppelgängers so their blood couldn't be used to bring back Markos. Bonnie had vague memories of exactly who and what Markos was and what he wanted to do, so Kai had made sure to fill her in on the missing information her group in Mystic Falls hadn't known the first go round.

The Travelers were an off shoot of the Gemini Coven who didn't like the fact that it was the merge that would decide who would be leader next. They felt anyone within the coven should have had a fair shot, which, Bonnie could understand. It would suck to know that just because you were not born with a twin, you could never have a chance to lead, even if you were a top notch witch.

A Gemini member named Markos was the one who initiated the break. He had managed to sway a good number of people to his cause and wanted to change how their coven chose their leaders. He waited until the next merge ceremony and then he and his followers attacked. In the ensuing melee, Markos was killed along with a good number of his followers. The remaining members, for their betrayal, were stripped of their Gemini coven status and cursed to never be able to form a true coven again.

So they moved from place to place, looking for a way to not only undo the curse, but to also bring back their esteemed leader so he could claim his proper seat at the head of the Gemini Coven. Over the years, Markos had been able to pass on information that if they could find a way to retrieve him from the other side, he had the means to demolish the coven and rebuild it from the ground up.

Which lead his followers to try and find a way to access the other side. The story of the scorned woman who created it had been passed down for centuries, yet none knew exactly how she'd done it, or how she kept it going in spite of her death.

Until they ran across a Bennett witch.

She was hiding out in an abandoned house, looking to stay out of sight from her owners who looked to take her and her child back down south. In exchange for safe passage to Canada, she told them what she knew about the other side and the anchor that held it together. She didn't know exactly what or where the anchor was, but that was enough information for the group, and they promptly handed her over to the men who were looking for her.

However, because she had learned not to put all her trust in people, she purposefully neglected to tell them that the anchor would be guarded by a group of hunters.

The five were created by another Bennett witch specifically to keep the anchor out of the wrong hands. Gifted with the speed and strength of vampires, unable to be compelled, these warriors would be the main line of defense in keeping the anchor safe. They constantly moved from place to place, ensuring that it was never in one spot long enough to be taken.

When Klaus Mikealson slaughtered all five hunters, the Travelers feared all hope was lost. Markos assured them that the Bennetts were smarter than that, and sure enough, eventually new hunters emerged. Leading them to discover that no matter what, as long as there was a need for the anchor, there would be hunters to guard it.

But after the massacre, the hunters went to ground. They trained others to do what they did, but without the magical enhancements. Eventually the lore around them faded away into an urban myth, only the five knew exactly who they were, and what they were charged with.

Bonnie could pick up the thread from there, in her old timeline, Conner had come to Mystic Falls because Shane had directed him there. In this timeline, he still found his way to the town, but Bonnie was able to successfully cloak the few vampires that lived there. She thought they'd gotten off scot free when Jeremy had called her in a panic because some weird markings had appeared on his hand. Connor had been killed by a traveler when he reported back that there was nothing to be found in Mystic Falls, except the last Bennett witch.

The traveler had assumed he could store himself away in Connor's body and go back to question Bonnie about the whereabouts of the anchor, but the fact that Connor was one of the five and not a normal hunter meant that once he died, his body was no longer viable and Jeremy was tapped to be the newest member.

She calmed him down by explaining what the marks meant, and that he would be faster, stronger, and impervious to being compelled. What she hadn't planned on was the fact that since he was made a spell that originated from her ancestors, she could somewhat control his hunter instincts. Which came in handy when she invited Caroline over to demonstrate how he couldn't be compelled. She had forgotten about the urge to kill all vampires until he had lunged at the blonde.

With Jeremy activated, and the doppelganger so close as well, Bonnie knew it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the travelers came to Mystic Falls. Matt was already back from his summer abroad with Rebekah, which meant Nadia was in town as well. She had already checked the warehouse and discovered the box that held the body of Amara, although she kept that little detail to herself.

Stefan was being watched by the Gemini as he did his heartbreak tour of the U.S, as was his doppelganger, Tom Avery. With Kai now knowing the location of the cure and how to get it in the prison world, there was no need to wake Silas. Bonnie was adamant about that decision, his ass could stay desiccated for all time. She still had nightmares about watching him slit her father's throat in front of the whole town, and not being able to do anything but scream into nothingness.

Bonnie started to brief Luke, but he held up a hand, "Nah, he wants you to tell him."

"Okay…I guess I can call him later and fill him in." Bonnie frowned, this Kai was even more finicky than the one she left behind.

Luke laughed as he sat up, "I mean, you can tell him when you see him."

"He's coming here? Doesn't he have a whole ass coven to run across the country?" Bonnie shook her head in bewilderment.

"They can handle themselves for a few days." Bonnie jumped as Kai appeared out of thin air.

"What the fu-?" Bonnie started. "You know what? New rule, knock first. I could have been walking around naked."

Kai snorted, "With my baby brother in the house?" He reclined on the loveseat, crossing one ankle over the other knee, while spreading his arms over the back of the couch. 'Man spread much?' Bonnie thought to herself.

"Not like he would have noticed." Bonnie countered.

"Um, I'm gay, not blind. I definitely would have noticed." Luke said, as he walked out the room into the kitchen.

Bonnie crossed her arms, "To what do I owe the pleasure?" Kai tilted his head, "Steven is heading back here, just thought you'd like to know."

"First of all, it's Stefan, you know that. Second, you couldn't tell me this over the phone?" She turned to gather up her pile of books. She hadn't found anything so far, but there were still stacks to go through. Not to mention, Jeremy was supposed to be dropping by with some of his dad's old notebooks that he kept in their attic.

"I was also instructed to give you these." She turned back to see him holding two envelopes, one bright pink and the other a light shade of purple. Bonnie smiled as she walked over to take the envelopes, "Oh man that is a lot of glitter." She took a seat on the floor and opened the envelopes over the coffee table, hoping to minimize the spread of glitter.

Her smile widened when she saw she was holding two invitations for a birthday party. She laughed, "I would have been happy with just the one invite."

Kai shook his head in mock horror, "Oh no, that was not going to work. Emily wanted the pink, but Gen wanted the purple. Neither would give in so this seemed like the best compromise." Bonnie laughed again, imagining Kai trying to reason with two tiny whirlwinds.

 

**

Logically Bonnie knew this Kai would be different, he did the merge at the right age, and had been running the coven ever since. But she got the shock of her life when it was revealed that not only had he married, but he'd had kids as well!

Twin girls that looked and acted just like their father. Bonnie remembers being stunned into silence when, upon entering the Gemini compound, Kai was met by shrieks of joy. She watched in amazement as he was tackled by two little girls who started talking a mile a minute about what they had been up to since he'd been gone.

Eventually the chatter died down to a dull roar and Kai introduced his daughters, Emily and Genevieve. The girls had taken to Bonnie instantly and had each latched onto a hand as they proceeded to show her around the compound. She also got to meet the rest of his siblings and their families at dinner that night.

Bonnie knew her face had to give away her surprise, but everyone was gracious enough not to mention it. There were plenty of people in attendance who gave their condolences on the loss of her grandmother. While it was nice of them to do so, Bonnie also wanted to ask where they were when she had needed help. All these people, and they all knew about what she had been going through, but no one had called or come by to see if she needed help with anything. She pushed past her bitterness, and managed to have a good night meeting new people and hearing stories about Sheila from people that knew her way back when.

Bonnie fell in love with their library. She was sure there was some magic that made it look like a normal room from the outside, but once you stepped inside, it was massive. At least three floors, each with a study area complete with comfy sofas and couches. Floor to ceiling windows, hidden alcoves, with a separate space for a kitchen, it was Bonnie's dream library. Filled with books, grimoires, and pretty much anything a witch that was looking to level up her magic knowledge could ever wish for.

"I'm never leaving." She declared.

Kai broke out in a grin, "I knew you'd like it."

There was even a kids area that held age appropriate books and manuals, complete with stuffed toys that the kids could practice their spells on. Bonnie was standing in that section one day watching as one of Kai's sisters, Robin she thinks, is coaching her daughter through her first try in floating feathers. Something about the way Robin firmly but lovingly guided her daughter through the words struck Bonnie right in the heart. She never had that. She never would have that. Bonnie clapped along with everyone else when she finally managed to do it, then excused herself.

Abby's decision to leave had done more than just gifted Bonnie with early abandonment issues, it had stunted the natural growth of magic. Since her father didn't like to acknowledge that part of her, her grams had mostly adhered to his wishes, only rebelling once it became clear that to not come clean would be detrimental, but it was too late by then. She would never have the countless hours of practicing chants, or poring over a grimoire making sure she got the wording just right with her grandmother.

She found herself in their massive garden just sitting and thinking when she felt Kai sit next to her. "Have you ever been jealous of a six year old?" Bonnie asked.

"Six? No." Kai squinted, "There may have been a couple 8 year olds that I've ruined the Santa thing for, but other than that, I'm good."

"I was watching Robin with her daughter and I realized that I never got that. Abby just…left. I missed out on years of practice, of training, and hands on knowledge. Knowledge that could have helped me when I needed it the most."

"Yeah, but then you wouldn't be here, now would you?" He nudged her with his shoulder. She turned to look at him full on, her gaze moving from the top of his hair to the bottom of his shoes. "I'm starting to feel a little objectified here, Bonster. Mind telling me what you're looking for?"

She flinched at the nickname and he swore, "Sorry, I keep forgetting that's a sore spot."

"I was wondering, how are you so different? The Kai I knew was-"

"Me. It's still me." He interrupted. "That guy that you knew is still in here. The urge to just take what I want and say fuck everyone else is always going to be there. I am a selfish person, Bonnie. I want what I want and if someone decides to get in my way, I have no qualms about going through them if I have to."

He gazed out into the gardens, "I can condemn what my other self did, while also saying with a straight face that I get where he was coming from. Who knows what I would have done if Jo hadn't agreed to merge with me back then. If I had to sit by and idly watch as I was passed over for what was rightfully mine. What he did, what I saw in your memories? I am capable of that, no question."

He chuckled, "For all the extra bullshit that comes with being born and living in this damn coven, I can honestly say that merging with Jo was the best thing for me. It gave me the patience to wait out my first instinct, which was usually to hurt. It gave me the curiosity to want to learn more about my condition. I wanted to learn why I was different than my siblings, and what I can do to ensure that I don't go off the deep end like he did."

"Is that why you got your doctorate?" Bonnie had been blown over by the fact that Kai was actually Dr. Parker with a PhD in Psychology. He nodded, "That, and if I'm being honest, I wanted to be able to find what makes people tick and use that to my advantage."

"Of course you did." Bonnie shook her head.

 

"Can you make it? Or will I have two disappointed little girls on my hands?" Kai's voice brought her back to the present.

"Of course I can make it." Bonnie tossed some glitter in his direction, "Quit using your kids as bait." She took the invitations and tacked them up on the corkboard next to the refrigerator. Bonnie noticed Luke had stepped outside to talk on the phone.

"What's the theme? Or will there be two separate ones?" Bonnie asked.

Kai heaved a sigh as he stood up from the couch, "There's two separate themes, they couldn't agree on one, and I just didn't want to listen to them fight about it."

Bonnie grinned, "You're such a good daddy." Right as the words left her mouth, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. She turned to face the cabinets and tried to will away her embarrassment. She heard him moving behind her and managed not to jump when he said low in her ear, "I can be." He continued past her to reach into the fridge and pulled out a soda can. Bonnie didn't turn around until he was back on the other side of the kitchen. Their gaze met in the space over the table and Bonnie didn't have to have a doctorate to be able to know what Kai was thinking.

Because she was thinking the same thing.

The mood was spoiled when the front door opened and Luke came back inside, "Not to interrupt, whatever this is," he waved a hand around, "but you've got incoming Bonnie."

Sure enough within a minute or so Damon was at the door, "Open up witchy, I come bearing gifts."

Bonnie opened the door to see Damon standing there holding a box labeled Grayson Gilbert. "Where's Jer?" Bonnie asked. Damon shrugged, "He said he had the urge to do some training. Whatever that means." He held up the box, "This what you were looking for?" Bonnie stepped forward to reach for the box, when Kai appeared at the door and grabbed it instead.

"Oh hey, David. Good seeing you again." Bonnie heaved a sigh and braced for the oncoming drama.

Sure enough, "It's Damon." He sneered. "I find it funny that for someone who runs a coven all the way across the country, you seem to spend an awful lot of time here."

"Really? Cause I find it funny that for someone who is over 150 years old, you seem to spend a lot of time around teenagers." With that, Kai hooked an arm around Bonnie's waist and smoothly pulled her to his side, while reaching over and slamming the door with the other.


	4. Chapter 4

Bonnie trudged up the stairs, somehow exhausted and extremely wired at the same time. The night hadn't gone as planned, but the end goal had been achieved. The travelers had been handled, and the Other Side was demolished. She had absorbed an awful lot of magic lent to her by the Gemini and she was anxious to get rid of it.

Bonnie touched the doorknob and felt her shoulders sag in resignation. "What can I do for you, Elijah?" She turned to face the eldest original, who had materialized in her yard. She knew she would have to deal with him, but tonight of all nights was just bad timing.

"I require just a moment of your time, Ms. Bennett." He stood casually with one hand in his pocket, suit as immaculate as always.

"Do I have a choice?" She muttered to herself as she sat in the swing on the porch. She waved a hand in his direction. "Go ahead."

"I think we both know why I'm here, and that I've been extremely lenient in allowing you-" He stopped when Bonnie started laughing.

"Allowing me?" She snorted, "You haven't allowed shit, Elijah. Nor have you been lenient in any way. I know what you've been up to. Find anything interesting?"

"As a matter of fact, I have." He approached slowly, "For instance, I know for a fact that Elena and the Lockwood Boy had been turned, but now they seem to be back to their human state." He stopped at the first stair.

"Magic is weird like that" Bonnie mused out loud.

"You and Niklaus vanished around the same time, but only you have returned, and I am unable to locate my brother by any means." He continued.

"I repeat, magic is weird like that."

He pounced on her words, "So it is by magic that you've hidden my brother?"

Bonnie took a minute to look at Elijah, the cool, completely put together original that she had first met all that time ago now showed cracks beneath his seemingly calm façade. She did have a little sympathy for him, after all that was his brother, but it was still Klaus.

Bonnie sighed, "Look Elijah, I'm going to be straight with you because I've had a long ass night, you're not getting him back. I'm not saying never, but definitely not anytime soon."

"Define soon."

"Within at least my lifetime soon." Bonnie said firmly. "I don't want to hear it, Elijah." She cut him off when it looked like he would protest. "We didn't start this, we were perfectly happy living our boring mundane lives until you and your brother barged in and had absolutely no regard for us and what we wanted. Our lives were nothing but pawns to you, and you had no qualms about knocking us down in order to get what you wanted." She fixed him with a stare, "Don't we deserve to live even a fraction of the time that you and your family have?"

Elijah looked as if he were struggling with himself, "Of course you do, and I apologize for Niklaus' heavy handed approach in how he went about breaking his curse-"

"Why are you apologizing for him, aren't you tired of it?"

"He's my family, Ms. Bennett. Even though yours is small, surely you must understand-." He broke off with a gasp as his skin started to gray.

Bonnie stood, her eyes glowing in the dark. "Don't talk about my family, Elijah. You don't have that right after what you set in motion leading up to my mother being turned. Focus on your own family, I'll handle mine." She pulled her magic back, watching as the gray seeped from his skin.

He nodded once, "Duly noted." He tilted his head, "How do I know you will keep your word?"

Bonnie frowned, "You mean besides the fact that I have no reason not to? What would I have to gain by killing Klaus now when he's such a valuable asset? He keeps you and the Salvatore's in line!"

"So you don't trust them either? Interesting."

"You still haven't answered my question." Bonnie decided to change tactics, she did not need Elijah trying to sow discord amongst the group. She was already kicking herself for letting it be known that the Salvatore's (and by extension, Elena) were being held at arm's length. She knew Elena especially had a soft spot for Elijah, even though it had proven to bite them (her) in the ass more often than not.

"What question would that be?"

"Why are you so tethered to him when he clearly does nothing but bring you down? I would think you'd take this time to breathe a little easier. You don't have to worry about him daggering you just because he stubbed his toe, or because his latest painting didn't turn out the way he wanted it to." She watched as he struggled to control his irritation.

"I know Kol and Rebekah are both glad." His head shot up in surprise. "You have two other siblings, Elijah. Haven't you even noticed that they've left and are living their own lives?"

"Of course I've noticed, but Niklaus-"

"IS FINE!" Bonnie shouted. "He's not in pain, he's not being tortured, he's taking a frigging NAP for the next 100 years or so! I could have delinked and killed him, but I didn't." She approached the steps and stepped down until they were eye to eye, "I could have made him human again, but I didn't. That is way more leniency than Klaus would have shown anyone and you know it. Let this go, Elijah. Let us live our lives, and you will get your brother back. I give you my word." She held out her hand for him to shake.

Bonnie could see him trying to come up with an alternative, but finding none. He reluctantly took her hand to seal the deal. "For what it's worth, I am sorry about my role in what happened with your mother. Neither she nor you deserved to be caught in the middle of my mother's desire to be rid of her children." Brown eyes met green, and for a moment, Bonnie saw what Elena and maybe Katherine saw when they looked at Elijah.

"Elijah.." Speaking of Katherine.

Elijah released her hand and turned to face the woman he seemingly couldn't let go of. "Katerina." He breathed. Bonnie watched as he made his way towards the curly haired brunette who was standing at the edge of the lawn.

Bonnie observed them from her porch as Katherine gestured into the darkness, then like magic, Nadia was there. She watched as introductions were made before turning away to go inside. Whatever happened with them from here on out, she hoped they kept it far away from Mystic Falls.

***

 

"I can't believe you're leaving for the summer again!" Caroline exclaimed as Bonnie packed for another summer away. "Didn't you totally demolish the other side? You need a break, not to be carted off to magic camp."

Elena nodded in agreement, "You never shared the details, but you slept for three days straight. Are you sure you're up for it?"

"It's because they helped me with that, Lena. I owe them, and I don't mind so much." Bonnie shrugged. The brunette wasn't mollified though, she chewed on her lower lip before deciding to just ask what was on her mind. "Look, I didn't ask for details when you sent me to stay with Damon at the lake house for the weekend, but now I'm asking, what happened? Why did I need to not be here, but it was okay for Stefan and Katherine?" Bonnie rolled her eyes as Elena practically spat out her double's name. Bonnie sighed, she knew she would have to come clean about the Travelers, so she gave them a quick and sanitized version of what went down that led to the other side being torn down.

Bonnie had made sure to keep both Elena and Tom Avery far away from where everything went down. Stefan and Katherine had stepped in to lend their blood in order to fuel the spell to trick the Travelers into releasing Markos. Once he crossed over into the world of the living, Kai and the rest of the Gemini stepped in to take him into their custody.

Katherine had tried to finagle a favor or two out of Bonnie before she would give up any of her blood. Bonnie could have just taken it, sure, but she decided to dangle something else in front of Katherine, her daughter. Once Bonnie had proven that Nadia was the daughter that she had had ripped from her arms all those years ago, and that they would be allowed to leave Mystic Falls together, Katherine fell in line.

What Bonnie would never tell them was that while Katherine had indeed lent some of her blood, the bulk came from Amara herself. Bonnie had Kai fetch another dose of the cure and gave it to her in order to turn her human before draining her of her blood, allowing her to finally die as human and be at peace.

Without the anchor, the other side predictably collapsed, taking with it all the trapped souls that were stuck there in the first place. Bonnie left out the part about Amara and Tom Avery completely, no need to out the fact that there had been even more doppelgängers floating around, thus leaving them to believe that the anchor was a thing, and not a person.

"I learned a lot last year, who knows what I'll learn this year." Bonnie returned to their current conversation as she wrapped her arms around the pouting blonde, "It'll go so fast, you won't even realize I'm gone. Besides, you'll have Jesse to keep you company, won't you?"

Caroline flushed before shaking her head, "Don't try and distract me, Bennett. There's a guy, isn't there?"

"Ooh, a guy?" Elena butted in. "I should have known! You used to hate going to summer camp when we were little!"

"This is so not the same thing, Lena." Bonnie said wryly as they all trooped downstairs and out to the front of the schhol.

"Bonnie Bennett! Did you meet some hot warlock and didn't even tell us?" Caroline questioned setting down one of her bags.

"Yeah, Bon Bon. What's with the eagerness to leave all this behind?" Damon had popped up from out of nowhere like usual.

"Why are you always here?" Bonnie snapped at him.

"Okay, I think we're getting off track, Bonnie has yet to answer the question." Caroline redirected everyone's attention.

"No! There is no one. I'm going just to learn more about magic."

Of course that was the moment that a familiar SUV decided to drive up next to them. "Shit." Bonnie swore under her breath. She saw Damon straighten and knew she wouldn't be getting out of this as easy as the last time.

"Ready, Bonnie?" She didn't even have to look at him to know he was sporting a shit eating grin. "What's up Darnell?"

"You know damn well my name is Damon." He snarled. Bonnie shot him a glare, but his gaze was fixed on Kai.

"We haven't met, I'm Caroline and this is Elena." Caroline jumped at the chance to dig for more information.

"Oh the BFF's. I've heard a lot about you both. I'm Malachai the current head of the Gemini Coven, but please, I prefer Kai. " Bonnie watched as Kai turned up the charm. Apparently it worked all too well because soon the three of them were engrossed in conversation like they were old friends.

"I don't like him, witchy." Damon was standing next to her.

"The feeling is mutual, trust me." She retorted as she walked towards the trio. "Okay, break it up, everyone. I'll be back the same time as last year."

"Bonnie, don't be rude." Caroline chastised. "He's the head of the coven."

Elena batted her brown eyes at Kai, "Is there any way we could arrange a visit? We all miss Bonnie so much when she's gone, and we've never been to Portland."

"Sorry, ladies. I wish I could, but unfortunately there are strict rules governing who is allowed at the compound." Kai shook his head sadly.

"Come on man, you're the head of the coven. If anyone can bend the rules, it's you." Damon edged closer, "What, are you scared we'll see something you don't want us to see?" He taunted.

Bonnie swore the temperature dropped a few degrees as Kai met Damon's gaze. Bonnie quickly stepped in between the two. "Can you help me with my bags?" She threw her smaller bag into his chest while nudging him with her magic.

Kai looked down at her, she mouthed 'please'. He quirked an eyebrow and smirked before backing up and taking her bag. Bonnie breathed a sigh of relief before rounding on Damon. "Why do you insist on pissing him off? You realize he can do pretty much anything to you and I won't be able to stop him? Stop picking fights with people more powerful than you, Damon. It won't always end like this." She looked to Elena who read her mind and quickly gave Bonnie a hug before dragging Damon off, talking his ear off.

"You, I like you." Caroline beamed at Kai. Bonnie rolled her eyes before hugging Caroline as well, "You are definitely explaining this when you get back." Caroline whispered in her ear before letting her go and following after Damon and Elena.

Bonnie settled in the vehicle next to Kai, waiting for him to start.

"Is he going to be there every time I pick you up?" Kai asked.

"We could avoid this all together if you would just trust me to keep my end of the deal and get to Portland on my own." Bonnie grumbled as she searched for her headphones.

"I do trust you, this is just more fun." He grinned as he sat back and closed his eyes.

"You are so extra."

 

**

 

Bonnie was bent at the waist, hands on her knees drawing in big gulps of air. "Oh my God, how is he not even winded?"

"Maybe you should stop while you're still…standing?" Luke suggested gently.

"Nah, let her keep going. I've got bets on how long she can last." Liv countered. "Come on Bennett, you can do it! Two more rounds and you'll win us 500 bucks!"

"You're…..betting….on me?" Bonnie wheezed out.

"Not just me." Liv said as she gestured to the small crowd that had formed to watch her spar.

"Had enough Bennett?" The taunt was delivered by the tall Asian man standing on the other side of the sparring circle.

"Up yours, Kenny!" She managed to yell back. He laughed as he took a drink from his water bottle.

"Okay, I'm going back in, wish me luck." Bonnie said.

"Keep away from his face!" Luke called out. "We have a date later." He defended himself to his sister.

The good news is that she made it the extra two rounds, the bad news is she got her ass soundly whupped. Although apparently that was a thing that happened routinely.

"Kenny Chan is our foremost expert in offensive spells. He's fought his way to the top, so it's not like we expected you to beat him." Their instructor, a kindly older woman who simply went by Bee, explained to Bonnie later, "We just wanted to get an idea of where you were lacking."

Bonnie winced, almost afraid to hear her analysis, "And?"

Bee simply smiled at her, "We have lots of work to do."

Part of that work was researching and learning the uses for certain spells and how to counter them. Which was why she was holed up in the archives on a Friday night while the rest of the Gemini were getting themselves ready for some event.

"Last chance, Bennett." Liv stepped in the archives. Bonnie was surprised to see her signature curls were pin straight and slicked back from her face. She was outfitted in a dark red dress that set off her fair complexion.

"You look awesome, Liv." Bonnie gushed. "But nah, I'm in for the night. Have fun." Liv asked her to take a picture so she could send it to Tyler 'to show him what he's missing', before leaving in a cloud of sweet smelling perfume.

The hours passed without Bonnie noticing, she was deeply engrossed in the various books and grimoires that lined the archives.

"You're still here?"

Bonnie jerked, upsetting the stack of books that she had balanced on the arm of the chair she had curled up in to read.

Kai knelt down to pick up the fallen tomes. "Burning the midnight oil?"

"Trying not to get shown up again." Bonnie stretched. "Party over?"

"You should have come, lots of new people to meet. Lots of people that wanted to meet Sheila's granddaughter." Bonnie shrugged, uneasy as always with being the one to carry the Bennett name. "I'm sure I'll get around to meeting them eventually, right?" She slid by him to return the books.

"You're awfully skittish around that subject." Kai stood to his full height and Bonnie finally got a good look at him. He was dressed head to toe in black, except for a red strip slashing across his tie. His scruff was expertly maintained, and Bonnie felt a tug low in her gut.

"What subject?" She turned away to return more books.

"The whole Bennett thing." When had he come up next to her?

"There are a lot of expectations that I'm not sure I'm meeting. It's kinda daunting."

"I don't know, I think you're kind of daunting yourself." Bonnie turned to face him in disbelief.

He laughed at her expression, "I mean it! Look at all you've done, almost completely untrained. I can't even imagine how powerful you'll be when you get more trained." He was standing in front of her now, Bonnie was standing on the second to last step on the ladder putting them at the same eye level.

"And older?" She couldn't resist teasing.

"Is that a big concern for you?" He brought a hand up to grip the ladder behind her.

"Not at the moment, no."

"Good."

Even though Bonnie had been expecting it, anticipating it even, (she hadn't kissed anyone since she and Jeremy broke up), his kiss still took her by surprise. She wasted no time in looping her arms around his neck to keep him pressed right up against her. She tilted her head to the side and parted her lips, allowing his tongue to run across her lips before diving in.

If she knew kissing Kai would be like this, she would have probably tried to sneak in a kiss or two when she was stuck in the prison world with him. Bonnie pulled away to take a breath, but that didn't deter Kai. He rained kisses across her cheek to her ear, "Did you ever do this with him?" he asked before taking the lobe in between his teeth and tugging softly.

"What?" Bonnie tried to focus on the question.

"Did you ever fuck him?" Every word was punctuated with a kiss.

"Why? Wondering if you measure up?" Bonnie leaned forward and rested her forehead against his.

"No, just wanted to make sure I'm the only Kai you're thinking of."

"No, I never kissed him. I wanted to, but then we found out about what he did, and…" Bonnie trailed off.

"And you dried up faster than the Sahara?" Kai mumbled against her lips.

"Are you always such a sweet talker?" Bonnie asked sarcastically.

He shrugged, running his hands over her hips and reaching back to palm her ass through her sleep pants. "Never had to be, I was the heir to the Gemini throne, that alone made me a catch." He slid a hand up to palm her breast. "You're the first one to make me work for it in a long time."

"Glad to be of service." She said cheekily before diving back in. He gripped her underneath her thighs and lifted her off the ladder and set her on the nearest bookshelf. Bonnie wrapped her legs around his waist and ground herself against him.

"Shit." He was the one to pull back this time. She helped him shed his jacket, shirt, and tie so he had more movement in his arms. He cupped her face and leaned in for a slow, deep kiss that utterly wrecked Bonnie. He ran his hands down her neck, down the center of her chest, before reaching the tie to her pants. He toyed with it while looking at Bonnie for permission.

Bonnie wanted to scream yes, but figured that would be a little over the top. So instead she batted his hand away and undid the tie herself, loosening it enough to slip her pants and underwear down over her hips. Kai grinned and dropped to his knees, pulling them off the rest of the way and throwing her legs over his shoulders. Bonnie clutched his head as he took his first lick, while making sure to keep one hand on the shelf as well to steady herself as she rode his face.

She had seen him, both sets of him, eat many times before and the word that always came to mind was voracious. As she held back a whimper, she thought it was only fitting that it applied to all types of eating, not just food. From sucking on her clit to plunging his tongue in and out of her, he took his time tasting every part of her.

He released one of her thighs to run his hand up to her mouth, Bonnie eagerly accepted the fingers he tapped against her lips, laving them as much as she could before he pulled them back and inserted first one, then the other inside her.

"Mmm." Bonnie bit her lip to muffle her sounds, it had been a while since she had been with anyone and she was right about the thoughts she'd had in the prison world regarding Kai's fingers. They were long and thick and felt amazing inside her. Bonnie's breath hitched and she bit back another moan as she thought of that Kai. Stuck all by himself for 18 years with only his hand, she wondered if he would be as controlled as this Kai or if he would eat her as messily as he ate that jam.

That was the wrong (or right) thing to picture for Bonnie, because she came at the mental image of Kai's (either one, it didn't really matter at this point) face messy with her juices. "Oh my God." Bonnie breathed heavily. There was no way anything could top that.

But of course Kai would prove her wrong. He sprang to his feet, pants already undone, and in one smooth move, sheathed himself inside her. Bonnie closed her eyes as she tilted her head back as she adjusted to the feel of him inside her for the first (but hopefully not last) time.

"Bonnie?" For the first time since she's known him, Kai's voice sounded strained. She focused her gaze on him and lifted her hips slightly. He took her hint and pulled back all the way to the tip before plunging back in and repeating the motion over and over. Bonnie tightened her legs around his waist and held on, Kai was driving deep inside her, lifting her off the shelf with every thrust. She was somewhat concerned when she noticed there were random books floating in the air, but she decided that could wait till later.

She raked her nails down his back causing him to curse and speed up his thrusts. Bonnie could feel herself about to fall over that edge, so she snaked a hand down in between their bodies, but Kai got there first. He lightly pinched her clit and Bonnie came, clenching around him so much he only got a few more thrusts in before he came right behind her.

He carried her to the nearest chair and the both collapsed in it breathing heavily.

"Well, I guess I know what my new favorite room is now." Bonnie mumbled into his shoulder.

**

 

"Are these the right color?" Bonnie asked in a hushed voice.

"Dunno, I was just told to come with you to make sure you picked up the balloons." He tossed a piece of confetti at Bonnie.

"Thanks, Joey. Helpful as ever." Bonnie rolled her eyes. Joseph Anthony Parker was another one of Kai's siblings, just a few years older than Luke and Liv. Bonnie had been working with him all week on her potion making, he was one of the coven's top advisor in that area. He also looked the most like Kai, from the dark hair to the blue/green eyes that always seemed to be laughing at something.

It hadn't escaped Bonnie's notice that it was Joey that the Kai in her world had called out by name, mentioning his drowning of the boy, and how he 'saved him for last'. She kept a careful watch of how Kai interacted with his brother, and it seemed like they were close, to her relief.

"Hey, BB. Can I ask you a question?" Bonnie turned to see him looking at his hands and fidgeting slightly.

"Yeah, what's up Joey?"

"You've got vampires as friends, right?" At her nod, he continued, "Have you ever thought about dating one?"

"Huh?" Bonnie's mind went absolutely blank.

"I mean, theoretical, not like I actually have someone in mind." He rushed on to say when Bonnie just stood there.

"Joey, do you have a vampire girlfriend?" Bonnie asked gently.

"No! Well….maybe?" Bonnie's eyes widened, "You can't tell Kai!" He added.

"Why would I tell Kai?" She cocked an eyebrow. Joey snorted, "Oh come on B, we all know it's just a matter of time before you two hook up, if you haven't already. Why else would Kai take so many trips out to Virginia? He used to just send one of us, until he met you. You're trying to tell me that there haven't been any secret trysts on his visits out there?"

"No!" She denied loudly, lowering her voice when she saw the looks that were being thrown their way. "No, believe me, I was just as surprised as anyone when he kept popping up."

"Huh." Joey looked confused. "Normally I have a really good sense for things like that." He shook his head, "so anyway, back to me."

They talked the whole ride back to the compound they talked about Joey's maybe vampire girlfriend and the best way to broach the subject with Kai. After being sworn to secrecy by Joey, she was allowed to go help Luke set up for his nieces' birthday party.

**

 

Bonnie barely saw Kai during his daughter's birthday party, which she sort of expected. Emily and Genevieve were the current coven leader heirs, so there was a bit of coven business mixed in with the normal chaos of a birthday party for 8 year old girls.

"God, someone remind me to get a refill of my birth control." Liv said as she plopped down next to Bonnie.

"It's not that bad, Liv." Bonnie said. She was actually enjoying all the noise and laughter.

"Spoken like an only child." Someone else chimed in. Bonnie raised her drink in defeat. There was idle chatter all around until Melissa Parker-Jones took a seat at the table as well. She was the next oldest after Kai and Jo. She was also 7 months pregnant with twins. Just being near her made Bonnie ready to jump at the slightest hint that she would be giving birth soon.

"Oh, the girls look so much like Lisa." She rubbed her stomach absentmindedly. There was a smattering of agreements while Bonnie sat in confusion.

"Oh, I'm sorry Bonnie. Lisa was their mother, Kai's wife." Mel explained. "She passed-"

"My daughter didn't pass," Mel was cut off by an older woman who sat at a nearby table by herself, "she was killed by one of those no good bloodsuckers." Bonnie's whole table went quiet as the woman ranted on. "It's just disgraceful, how they're allowed to mix with common folk. They should all be rounded up and set on fire." Bonnie met Joey's eyes across the table, no wonder the poor guy was afraid of going after who he wanted.

"Your grandmother would be ashamed of you Bonnie Bennett, cavorting around with those bloodsuckers." Bonnie felt for the woman, losing her daughter, but there was no way in hell she would ever allow anyone to talk about her grandmother.

She whipped around in her chair, making sure to keep her voice low as to not disturb the rest of the party, "Don't you talk about my grandmother. You must not have known her that well if you think she was the type to turn her back on the same kids she had watched grow from birth. None of my friends went looking to be turned, it all happened to them, against their will. What kind of person would I be to turn my back on them when they really needed me?" Bonnie was struck by the guilt she knew she would always carry for initially doing that very thing to Caroline.

"If you really wanted to help them, you would have put a stake in their hearts immediately after they decided to turn." And with that she flounced off. Bonnie sat with her mouth hung open, that bitter old woman was the grandmother to those two wonderful girls?

"Bonnie?" Mel tried to get her attention, "Don't pay any attention to Annalise, she's just a lonely woman who has very little joy in her heart. I'm sure Sheila is very proud of you." Mel smoothed a piece of hair back from Bonnie's face and she suddenly felt a lump in her throat. She stood quickly, grabbing her half-full cup. "I'm out, anyone else need a refill?"

Everyone else was polite enough to refuse, except Joey. He followed her to where the drinks were set up before taking her arm and guiding her into a quiet corner to wrap her up in a big hug. He reminded Bonnie that she needed to call Matt, he was always able to calm her down, and she really missed his hugs.

"Mel's right. Annalise used to be bearable, but ever since Lisa, she's let it fester and she's become so hateful. It's one thing to hate the vampire that killed your kid, but another to wish death on all of them. She shouldn't have said that about Sheila, though. She had no right to bring her issues to you."

"It's okay," Bonnie sniffed, "not like there aren't other people thinking the same thing, right? I'm good, I just needed to get away. I hate being the center of attention like that. It wasn't the right time and place for it. I'm just glad the girls didn't hear it, or God, Kai."

"Hear what?" Kai's voice was clipped.

"Why am I not surprised?" She untangled herself from Joey's arms and turned to face Kai. His expression switched lighting fast as he looked at her, then at his brother. Joey held out his arms, 'Don't look at me, bro. Annalise was talking her shit."

"Oh." He turned on his heel. Bonnie shot Joey a 'WTF?' look and grabbed Kai's arm, "No."

"I'm just going to talk to her." The muscle in his jaw ticked, Bonnie knew that look.

"Stop. We are at your daughters' birthday party. Time and place, Kai." He had stopped walking, but she could still hear him grinding his teeth. "Please do not make this a thing."

"Fine, but we will be talking about this later." He snapped out before shaking off her hand and retreating.

"Nothing going on, huh?" Joey's tone was mocking.

"Shut up, Joey."


	5. Chapter 5

The knock came right as Bonnie was getting ready for bed.

"Bon?" Bonnie finished changing into her pajamas and went to stand next to the door. She knew what he wanted to talk about, but didn't really feel up to rehashing the whole scene again. "I know you're in there, Joey told me that you threw him out a half hour ago."

"I'm just gonna head to bed, I'll talk to you in the morning." She said through the door, knowing that if she let him in, there wouldn't really be a lot of talking going on. It would be easier to discuss this when she knew others were around to keep him distracted.

She heard him shuffle a bit before his voice came back through the door, "I have cake."

Bonnie opened the door and sure enough, he was carrying two plates of birthday cake in each hand. "You should have led with that." He snorted as he moved past her and set the plates on the table, then swiftly turned and pressed her against the wall. "You should have stayed." He nosed around her ear as he let a hand drift under her top. "We sang Happy Birthday," The same wandering hand cupped a breast. "We had cake, and as you can see, I was nice enough to bring you some." His thumb teased her nipple. "There was even ice cream." He tugged lightly, and Bonnie moaned softly as she arched into his touch.

Kai pulled back abruptly, leaving Bonnie feeling confused and more than a little turned on. She watched as he took one of the plates and sat down, eating his cake like he hadn't just had his hand up her shirt.

"Okay." Bonnie shook her head to clear it, then grabbed the other plate. She made sure to keep some distance between the two of them. Bonnie was sorry she missed it the first time around, the cake was absolutely delicious. She cleaned her plate, not realizing that Kai was watching her closely.

"So I was talking to Bee about your training, and she thinks you need to spend more time on your offensive spells." Kai said nonchalantly.

Bonnie raised an eyebrow, but stayed silent. Was this really what he wanted to talk about? She licked the last of the frosting off her fork before setting her plate down and facing the Gemini leader head on. "That's not why you're here."

"Nope, I really just wanted to brag and show off my baking skills." He threw a wink her way. That simple gesture brought to mind his counterpart, who had done the same thing in 1994. Right before he stabbed her and left her for dead, that is.

"You're thinking about him right now, aren't you?"

Bonnie blinked and looked away. "You two have a few of the same mannerisms. I guess it's to be expected, seeing as you are the same person….kinda."

"So did he make a habit of winking at you?" Kai inquired.

"Only when he was about to cause me bodily pain." Bonnie shot him an overly artificial smile. "Look, thanks for the cake, but it's pretty late and I-"

"What did Annalise say to upset you?" He asked abruptly.

"It's not important." Bonnie tried to downplay the altercation.

"Obviously it was. You left the party, and no less than five people came to me to inquire as to how you were feeling."

Bonnie swore under her breath, "I didn't mean to cause a scene. She mentioned my Grams, and I'm not gonna stand for anyone talking about her, especially now that she's not around to defend herself." Bonnie quickly recounted the whole conversation to Kai who listened silently.

"Are you okay?"

Bonnie frowned, "Yeah, I'm fine. Especially now that my sweet tooth has been fed." She tried to joke, but Kai didn't crack a smile. "Kai, I'm fine. It was a moment. I'm sure it had to be hard for her to see her granddaughters celebrate their birthday without their mother, her daughter, there. She was just looking for someone to lash out at, and it just so happened to be me." She got off the bed and walked towards where he was still sitting down.

"I get where she's coming from, I did kinda the same thing. You know my friend Caroline, the blonde one?" Kai nodded and reached out to pull her closer, "Well, when she turned, I didn't want anything to do with her. It was right after Grams died, and I was so pissed off at everything vampires, that I pushed her away. She had just been turned, and had no idea what was going on and I abandoned her."

Kai wrapped his arms around her waist, "You guys eventually got over it, though. I saw you with them, you can't even tell there was a break in your friendship. Annalise though, has only gotten worse over the years. I've let it slide because she's Lisa's mom, but her attitude has gotten worse as time's gone on."

That was the first time she had heard Kai say his wife's name. "Was Lisa like her mom?" Bonnie ventured, she has long been curious at the type of woman Kai would deem acceptable enough to marry and have kids with.

"Lisa?" Kai let out a laugh. "Nah, she was nothing like her mom. Or anyone else in the coven. That's why we got along so well." He shifted enough to allow Bonnie to sit on his lap. "She was the only one besides Josette who wasn't scared of me when we were kids. I'm sure you know I have quite the temper, when the others would run screaming, she'd just tell me to take a chill pill."

He ran his hands along Bonnie's legs, talking softly. "It was her idea to do the merge early. She overheard my dad talking and figured he was trying to find a way to screw me over. She was able to convince Jo to sneak away and do the ceremony with me. After, when I was dealing with all these new feelings and emotions, she was there with me every step of the way."

"She sounds awesome." Bonnie stroked the back of his neck as he talked.

"She was, she really was. So when the time came to choose a partner, I didn't hesitate to ask her. There was nobody else I trusted or respected as much as Lisa, and I knew she'd be a great fit for the coven. I knew she'd have my back, and I'd have hers."

"Sounds like you really loved her."

"I loved her, yes. But it wasn't like a normal husband and wife love. I loved her as my best friend, the mother to my kids, the co-ruler of the Gemini, but we both knew we didn't have that romantic spark."

"That's still a lot more than a lot of other married couples have." Bonnie reassured him.

"I know. I was lucky to have her on my side." He frowned. "But her family was always a bit of a shit show. Her mom never liked any other supernaturals, but after Lisa was killed, it's like it ramped up to a whole new level. You managed to work through your opposition to vampires, Annalise never bothered. I'm going to have to do something about it soon."

He sounded so tired that Bonnie figured that was enough talking for the night. She removed herself from his lap against his protests, and led him to her bed. "I like where your mind is headed, Bonnie Bennett." His grin dropped as Bonnie slapped his hands away from her pajama top.

"We are just sleeping tonight, you sound exhausted." Bonnie told him sternly.

"Aw come on. I'm suddenly not that tired anymore." He leered at her.

"Or you can leave. It's up to you." Bonnie crossed her arms.

"Ugh, you are the worst." He complained as he stripped down to just his boxers and slid in the bed. He immediately reached for Bonnie, curling her into his body.

In the silence of the room, it dawned on Bonnie that as abnormal as it was for her to have sex with the Gemini coven leader, it was even more abnormal to fall asleep in his arms. Her last thought for the night was she hoped that things wouldn't get awkward between them.

 

***

 

"Thank God you're back!" The door to the dorm room flew open.

Bonnie jumped in surprise, "Jesus Care. Did you kick the door open?"

"No. Maybe. Who cares? You're back!" Bonnie squeaks as Caroline envelopes her in a crushing hug.

"Care? Maybe wanna let her breathe a bit?" Matt suggested as he followed the baby vampire through the door carrying a box. Caroline released Bonnie to instruct him on where exactly to put the box.

"I forgot the new sheets and blankets in the car, be right back!" In a flash she was gone. Bonnie and Matt exchanged glances.

"Hurricane Caroline." Matt joked.

"Clear a path, people." Bonnie agreed as she held out her arms for a hug. Matt wrapped his arms around her and swung her around. "I've missed you, between college and your summers away at 'Magic Camp'" Matt raised his eyebrows, "I feel like I barely get to see you nowadays."

"I know and I'm sorry. How about we schedule an old school game night? Just you and me, and some serious Mario Kart, we can make it a whole weekend! It would do me some good to get out from this place when both of them are busy with their boyfriends." Bonnie rolled her eyes. It was a normal occurrence to come back to their shared room and see Damon lounging around.

Caroline had taken to inviting Jesse to hang out in the room as well, citing that since Damon was always around, she should be able to invite her boyfriend too. Bonnie didn't really care, as long as she was allowed to study, but sometimes the tension in the room was incredibly thick.

Matt nodded, "That will work, hang out all day in our PJ's and eat nothing but junk food."

"Sounds like you girls have a raging night ahead of you." Matt didn't even bother to turn around while Bonnie just waved off the dark haired vampire. Ever since she had gotten back, Damon had been more annoying than usual. She knows he's just waiting for the opportunity to get her alone to talk about Kai and her summers away, but Bonnie had managed to ignore him so far. She still had some work to do with the whole Augustine mess that was brewing beneath the surface.

As if by thought, Elena appeared in the door holding an envelope, "I just got this invitation from something called the Augustine Society, apparently my dad was a member."

Bonnie watched Damon as his face tightened. She wishes she could remember all the details of what happened around this time, but this was also when she was the anchor, and her days were pretty much full of trying to not freak out in public when spirits passed through her.

"You don't want to join some old stuffy society." Damon plucked the envelope from her hands, "I'm falling asleep just thinking about it."

Bonnie pinned him with a glare, she knew exactly why Damon didn't want Elena to join. It wouldn't do for her to find out that he and his BFF Enzo went around murdering-

Bonnie gasped out loud. She had forgotten that while Damon was free to roam, Enzo was still stuck in a cage somewhere down in the school.

"Bon, you okay?" Matt touched her arm in concern.

Bonnie smiled brightly, "Yep, I just remembered I left a book in Portland, but it's okay. I'll just buy a new one."

"What book?" Damon asked, not fooled for a second.

"None of your business." Bonnie turned to address Matt, "Come on, I'll walk you out while we plan our movie slash gaming weekend." Bonnie looped an arm through Matts and they left the room.

"You know I'm not fooled by that story, right?" Matt said nonchalantly as they descended the stairs. Bonnie sighed and rested her head against his shoulder, "Yeah I know, but I can't really say anything right now."

"It's not just right now. Ever since you disappeared, you've been different." Matt said.

Bonnie was almost afraid to ask, "Good different? Bad different?"

"Neither, just different." He shrugged. "You're still Bonnie, so it doesn't' really matter to me." Bonnie stopped and threw her arms around Matt. "Don't ever change, Matty Blue." She mumbled into his chest.

Matt patted her back awkwardly, "Okay, weirding me out now. Come on, I need something to drink after all that lifting." He slung an arm around her shoulder and they both headed off in search of something to fill their bellies.

 

***

 

Bonnie crept along close to the wall, hoping to blend in with the shadows.

"Are you sure it's here?" Luke whispered to her left.

"It's somewhere on campus." Bonnie answered, making sure to keep her voice low.

"Why don't you just ask Salvatore where it is?" Liv sounded bored and ready to book it at any moment.

"Because he'll have a million questions as to how I know about his time being locked up, and I'm trying not to involve him in this." Bonnie snapped.

"Do you really think you're gonna find a sign that says 'Entrance to Secret Lair' posted up on the wall?" Liv snarked.

"I was hoping for a lighted pathway actually." Bonnie said through clenched teeth.

The trio wandered around campus for another half hour before Liv called it quits, and Luke said he had to go 'study', which Bonnie knew was code for seeing his boyfriend. She kept at it for a while before throwing in the towel herself.

She opened the door to her room and found herself face to face with a furious Damon. "What the fuck do you know about the Augustine society?" Bonnie frowned, how the hell had he found out about what she was doing?

As if he heard her thoughts, he held up her phone. Bonnie's eyes narrowed as she realized he must have read her correspondence with Kai and his siblings about doing some recon to find where the lab is in order to free Enzo and destroy the place.

"You went through my phone?" Bonnie tried to snatch her phone back, but he held it up out of her reach.

"Nuh uh, witch. Tell me how you know and what you were doing with the wonder twins tonight? How do you even know about Enzo?"

"You mean, how do I know about your former BFF who you left to suffer locked in a cage, after he helped you escape?" Bonnie magicked her phone out of his hand and pushed by him to get to her bed.

Damon's eyes bulged from his head, "How the fuck-?" He looked at her suspiciously, before speeding over and attempting to rush her, but Bonnie had been expecting his reaction and had put up a protective barrier. "Calm down, Damon."

The words predictably had the opposite effect on the vampire. "Who are you? I knew you were acting different since your little field trip." He banged on the invisible perimeter. "Where is Bonnie?"

"I'm right here, dumbass." Bonnie rolled her eyes.

"No, there's no way that Bonnie Bennett could ever know about me being captured by the Augustine society, or what I did to Enzo. Who are you?" He asked again. "If you're here for Elena-"

"Oh that's rich, and a little sad. Everything in your world revolves around Elena. You do realize there are other people that matter, right Damon?" Bonnie was rapidly growing tired of Damon's pushiness, "Talk to your brother lately? Oh, right, he wants nothing to do with you." Bonnie knew it was a low blow, but he was pissing her off. "For the last time, I am Bonnie, and you need to calm down and back it up a few steps before I put you in a time out."

"What, like you did with Klaus?" He taunted.

Bonnie cocked her head to the left, "Do you want to know what I did with Klaus? Keep pissing me off, I'll put you right next to him."

Damon scoffed, "You really think Elena will ever forgive your for that?"

Bonnie lifted an eyebrow, "Well, she forgave your sorry ass for snapping her brothers neck, for using and abusing Caroline, for turning my mother, and countless other things like going after members of the Whitmore family that had nothing to do with what happened to you." She dropped the barrier, "Do you really think Elena has the right to tell me or anyone else how to behave in regards to you? Moreover, do you really think I care?"

Bonnie moved around Damon's still form and gathered her things so she could go take a shower. Before she opened the door, she turned to Damon "I'm trying to help free Enzo, and destroy what they're doing, because it's the right thing to do. If you want to help, then that's fine, but no more killing. I'm telling you right now that Aaron Whitmore is off limits. You've taken all of his family for something that he has no idea is happening. I won't allow it."

"What are you gonna do Bon Bon?" Damon got a little bit of his cockiness back.

"Please don't test me, Damon. I have a lot less patience for your emotional bullshit nowadays." With that, she left the room and headed to the showers. She hoped he would heed her words and leave well enough alone.

 

***

 

Of course he didn't.

When all was said and done, Bonnie succeeded in finding the lab and destroying it, but Damon showed up out nowhere and tried to get a few licks in himself, which resulted in Enzo and Dr. Maxfield both dying and him somehow getting injected with something Dr. Maxfield called the Ripper Virus.

Damon turned even more crazed, but thankfully his focus was only on other vampires. Bonnie had to keep him isolated so he didn't try to attack Caroline, or Stefan who came running when Elena tearfully called him. They all agreed to place him in the tomb beneath Mystic Falls until they could figure out a cure.

That was something that Damon did not care for in the least. He naturally blamed Bonnie and ranted and raved that she was an imposter and this was all part of her plan. Luckily this was all dismissed due to him being infected.

"So let me get this straight," Bonnie hung her head as she knew what was about to come, "You want little old me to clear my busy schedule to come allll the way out there and help you find a cure for this 'Ripper Virus'?" Bonnie couldn't see him, but she knew Kai was smirking..

"I don't know why you're making such a big deal, don't you do a lot of business on the East Coast anyway? If you don't want anyone knowing what you're really up to, just say you're doing something else." Bonnie tried to reason with him.

All their snooping and digging through the research left behind by Dr. Maxfield yielded no results or clues as to a cure. Elena and Stefan had begged Bonnie to reach out to the Gemini to see if they could help. Bonnie knew Kai would help, but she wasn't sure what the cost would be, or that Mystic Falls knew what it would be getting into making a deal with Kai.

"But I have children who need me." Kai gasped in mock horror.

"Why are you like this?" Bonnie shook her head, already anticipating what she could bargain with when an idea came to her.

"You know what? Hold that thought. I totally forgot that I know a few people that owe me a favor."

"What people?" Kai's voice hardened.

"Oh don't worry bout it, just a few originals who are grateful to me for helping them get a few decades or so of freedom from their dagger happy older brother. I'll call them, surely they've got some contacts that can hook me up. You're off the hook, talk to you later!" Bonnie cackled as she hung up gleefully, fully expecting Kai to blow up her phone in return.

"What originals owe you a favor?" Bonnie had thought she was alone for the moment. Matt had said that he was running out to pick up their pizza order, he must have forgotten something.

"Well….um." She didn't like lying to Matt, but Bonnie wasn't sure how much to tell him.

"Forget about it," He smiled ruefully, "I'm sure it's some weird magic thing, right?" Bonnie hated the look on Matt's face right then, he looked like he expected to be left out of the loop simply because he was human. He grabbed his wallet and made a swift exit. Bonnie shot a quick text off to Rebekah and Kol asking if they could help with looking for a cure. She was surprised to get an instant response from Rebekah saying she would be over to talk about it later, she didn't know the original was back in Mystic Falls.

When he came back with their junk food, Bonnie helped him unload then dropped the bomb on him. "I died, Matty."

"Just now, while I was gone?" For some reason, that sentence coupled with his bewildered face set Bonnie off. She laughed until her sides ached, Matt was confused, but held her when her laughter turned to sobs. Bonnie supposed she had that breakdown coming. After she composed herself, she came clean with him. Their pizza went cool as she told him everything that had happened to her starting from the original time-line that she came from up until now.

"Daaamn, Bon." Matt breathed out, "that is some serious shit. Who else knows?"

Bonnie lifted a shoulder, "Lucy knows, I had to explain how it was I ended up at her front door. Oh and of course, the leader and a few members of the Gemini Coven. I needed their help to hide Klaus." She shot him a watery smile, "and you."

Matt was still wearing his thinking expression, "I knew there was something different about you. I just couldn't put my finger on it."

"Does knowing all this make you feel any different towards me?" Bonnie asked tentatively. If Matt reacted badly, she would definitely never tell anyone else.

The look Matt tossed her way was one that she was very familiar with, it was the same look that he gave her when she told him that she had accidentally lost one of his hot wheels and asked him tearfully if he hated her. He had hugged her and told her that she was his best friend and that he would never hate her. She gladly snuggled into his chest when he enveloped her in his arms once more.

The two friends dug into the pizza and other snacks as they sat and caught each other up on what was going on in their respective lives. Bonnie knew Matt had applied and was accepted into the police academy, but hadn't known that he was still seeing Rebekah.

"That would explain why-" Bonnie started, then stopped. It wasn't her business to tell Matt that Rebekah was still considering taking the cure.

"Oh, don't worry, I've told him all about it." She heard Rebekah's voice drift through the door as the blond entered. "Well, I didn't tell him that it was coming from you, but he knows the gist." Bonnie watched as they greeted each other, and as the couple moved around the kitchen and living room. It seemed like Rebekah spent a lot of time in Matt's home.

They settled themselves in and after a heated discussion on what to watch, the three soon settled into a comfortable camaraderie. Bonnie was hard pressed to remember why exactly she had never interacted with the sole female original before. Probably because both Caroline and Elena felt threatened by her, so Bonnie stayed away in solidarity.

When she had initially taken Klaus, she hadn't made it too far before Kol (and Rebekah who was not far from him) found her. To her surprise, the two siblings had had few arguments with Bonnie over taking Klaus's body, once she swore she wouldn't kill him. Bonnie actually had to stop Kol from getting a few hits in himself for his constant daggering by his brother. Rebekah was the holdout until Bonnie told her that she knew of the cure and promised Rebekah that if she helped her, it would be hers. Rebekah still hadn't actually taken it, but if the way the two were acting any indication, Bonnie was sure it was only a matter of time.

"So what's this about needing information for a so called 'Ripper Virus'?" Rebekah asked once they were done with the first movie. Bonnie sighed, then explained to them what happened. "If Damon had just waited, and listened to me, we wouldn't be in this mess. I half hope we have to come up with one from scratch, maybe then we'll get a break from his over-dramatic ass." Bonnie grumbled.

Rebekah gasped dramatically, "And risk upsetting dear Elena?" She held a hand to her throat in mock horror.

"I am done moving heaven and earth for her sake only to end up dead." Bonnie said as she reclined on the loveseat. She caught Rebekah's confused look, "Oh right. Might as well tell you too." She relayed her ordeal to Rebekah who sat with her mouth open in shock.

"You were dead for a whole bleeding summer, and nobody noticed until they needed something? What about your father dying?" Bonnie waved her off tiredly, "Trust me, I know. I've had to make my peace with it. Which is why I'm going so hard this time around, I'm done giving my all for so little in return. Is there any more pepperoni?"

 

***

 

Of all the things Bonnie expected to find when she arrived at her Grams' place, Kai sitting in the porch swing was not one of them. She shut her car door and made her way up the stairs slowly.

"I thought you were sooo busy, and couldn't spare the time?" She stood in front of him and cocked her head to the side. Kai mirrored her head tilt, "Well, as it turns out, I did have business to attend to on the East Coast."

"That's awfully convenient."

"I'm a convenient kind of guy." Kai leaned forward and looped an arm around Bonnie's waist, lifting her to sit astride him on the porch swing. That was outside. In full view of the neighbors. "Wait, Kai-"

"Privacy spell." He barely got out before closing the distance from his mouth to hers. Bonnie eagerly wrapped her hands around his neck, tugging him closer to her. She moaned into Kai's mouth as his hands made their way to her ass and he gripped each cheek tightly causing her to grind down on his already prominent erection.

The swing creaked and groaned, Bonnie broke away to look up at the junction where the swing met the porch. "Maybe we should move this inside? I don't want to break my Grams' porch swing while I'm riding you."

Kai laughed into her neck, "Are you forgetting you're a witch?" Bonnie couldn't tell what he was chanting into her skin, but she did feel the strains of his magic wrap around her before flying up to settle around them. "There, sturdy as a horse. Ride away."

"Again with the charm." Bonnie leaned back to lift the skirt of her dress, slapping Kai's impatient hands away. "You've ripped two of my favorite pairs so far, hands off." Kai pouted and unbuttoned the top half of her dress instead, burying his face in her chest.

"You want charming? How bout this? You have fantastic boobs, Bon, truly great." Bonnie's laugh turned to moans as he played with her nipples through her bra. Licking and biting one before moving to the other and repeating the motions while Bonnie arched her back, lost in the sensations he was creating. He moved a hand down to rub her clit with his thumb while pushing her panties to the side and slipping two fingers into her.

True to her word, Bonnie rode his fingers while he lavished attention on her breasts that were right at eye level for him. She leaned forward and bit his shoulder when she came, not wanting to yell out into the still of the night. Kai removed his fingers and brought them up to his mouth, he made a show of licking her juices that dripped down his hand. "I knew you missed me."

Bonnie huffed and reached down to undo his fly, she grinned as she stroked him in her hand, "I'd say someone missed me too." Kai lifted her and drew her down slowly on him, groaning softly at the feel of her around him. He leisurely stroked her tongue with his as she undulated in his lap, the porch swing no longer making any suspicious sounds, simply swaying back and forth. Bonnie reached behind Kai to grip the top of swing as leverage as she drew her knees closer to their joined bodies, and started riding him faster, eager to reach that peak that she felt herself ascending. Kai responded in kind by planting his feet and thrusting into her at a faster pace. Slow and steady was left behind as they both neared their release.

Kai lifted his head from her chest and winked at her before he snaked a hand down and pinched her clit. Bonnie swore she saw stars as she tightened around him came with a muted yell, Kai followed not too long after, breathing harshly into her neck.

Kai eased her down from her orgasm, running his hands lightly over her heated skin until her shudders died down and she melted against him. "I really did miss you." Bonnie said softly into the night air.

"I missed you too."


	6. Chapter 6

Bonnie could hear the hushed voices just outside her bathroom door.

"How long has she been in there?"

"An hour or so, should I go in?"

"I tried, there's a magic barrier. I can't get through, so much for vampire strength."

"Let me try."

"Okay first of all, you're not a hybrid anymore, you probably can't get through either. Secondly, she's in the bathroom, which means she's probably in the tub, which means naked."

"….so you don't want me to try?"

Bonnie closed her eyes and sunk down in the water, allowing it to flow over her head. How had everything gotten so fucked up?

 

****

 

2 Hours ago…

"It's about damn time, witchy." Damon slammed up against the barrier that kept him from leaving the tomb. Bonnie rolled her eyes as she stood on the other side with her arms crossed. "Really? I'm here doing you a favor and you're coming at me with attitude? May I remind you that it's your own fault for interfering?"

Damon slumped against the side of the cave, "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I've been in here for a month straight and I'm going out of my damn mind." He straightened up and faced her head on, "My attitude has been for shit. I just…want out of here."

Bonnie felt slightly mollified by his apology and held out the vial that was her whole reason for being down there in the first place. "Courtesy of the Gemini Coven."

Damon looked like he wanted to drop to his knees and cry, "I could actually hug you right now." Bonnie smiled faintly as she recalled the same sentence being uttered by the vampire under very different circumstances. Damon downed the vial and Bonnie dropped the barrier, allowing him to take his first steps outside the cave he had been restricted to in over a month. 

"Come on, let's get you home. I'm sure there's a bottle of bourbon that you probably have saved for an occasion just like this." Bonne insisted on driving him back home, she knew that Stefan had been staying there and she wanted to ensure that the virus was well and truly out of his system.

They had just gotten settled in the car when Damon cleared his throat, "I know I should have said this a hundred times before, but thank you, Bonnie. I know you've done a lot for me, all of us really, and it is appreciated." Bonnie looked over in surprise, Damon was completely serious. 

"Why did you even show up?" Bonnie asked. "I had it covered, Damon."

Bonnie saw a muscle in his jaw tick, "They had it coming! You know what they were doing in there, Bonnie. They held me and Enzo hostage and experimented on us for decades. What, was I supposed to just let that go?"

"You were supposed to back off and let me take care of it! I know you wanted to get your hits in, but going after the family members that had absolutely nothing to do with it was low, even for you." Bonnie chided. She placed the keys in the ignition, but was stopped from turning it on by Damon's hand. "You still haven't told me how you knew about it." 

"There's a lot I haven't told you." She shook off his hand and started the car. 

"But I am right, though? Something about you is different." 

Bonnie sat for a moment, "Sometimes I forget, with all your other less than favorable traits right there on the surface, that you are really observant."

Damon frowned, "I think there was a compliment in there somewhere."

Bonnie put the car in drive, "I'll explain when we get back to the boarding house, I really don't feel like saying this twice, and I know you all will have questions." 

They had barely parked before Damon threw open the car door and was flashing to his front door. Bonnie threw up a barrier just before he reached the door, "What did I tell you? I want to make sure that you don't attack your brother first." She brushed by him and they both entered the study bickering as usual.

"What? No welcome home bourbon? I'm hurt." Damon snarked, but Bonnie could tell he was genuinely hoping to see either his girlfriend or his brother. Since neither were in attendance, and Bonnie felt confident that the Gemini upheld their end of the bargain in regards to the cure, she decided to leave.

"Well, this has been fun, well, not really. Damon, stay out of places you don't belong. I don't know how many favors I have left with the Gemini, I'd hate to waste them on you." Bonnie tried to beat a hasty exit, but Damon sped in front of her. 

"No way, Judgey. You've got some splaining to do, remember?" Damon pulled her over to the bar area, "Here, have a little warm up before you start." Bonnie shrugged off his hand and headed into the kitchen. "I wonder where Elena is." Bonnie wondered out loud. 

"Wherever she is, she better get back here fast, I've got a month to make up for." Damon had followed her into the kitchen to grab some ice. 

"Oh, ew." Bonnie scrunched up her face. 

She was slapping his hand away from the ice maker when the front door opened again and Bonnie heard Elena's excited voice. She shushed Damon and cloaked him, throwing up the barrier once more. She figured it would be better to surprise them that way. Bonnie would only admit it to herself, but Elena had started to get on her last nerve lately. Every conversation revolved around whether or not Bonnie or the Gemini had found a cure for the virus. So Bonnie was more than ready to reveal that Damon was free. Plus, she was sure that their reunion would get her out of telling them that she wasn't necessarily the same Bonnie as before.

"I can't believe they agreed!" Elena flew into the room, long hair flowing behind her. Bonnie was sure she heard Damon sigh, gross.

"We're still only halfway there." Stefan cautioned. 

"Did you hear me? They agreed! Now all we have to do is get a little bit of Bonnie's blood to trade and they'll cure Damon." 

Bonnie felt her blood turn to ice inside her veins. What the hell was Elena talking about?

"Excuse me?" Bonnie stepped out from behind the door to the kitchen. Elena's eyes widened in surprise, "Bonnie! I didn't know you were here."

"Obviously." You could have cut glass with the sharpness in Bonnie's voice. "Exactly who were you planning on giving my blood to?"

"Well, um. We found this coven that assured me that they could cure Damon." Elena meekly explained.

"How were they planning on doing that, Elena?" Bonnie stepped closer.

"Well, I don't really know-"

"Why did they need my blood, specifically?"

"I'm not sure-"

"Did you ask?" 

"It was my idea, Bonnie." Stefan tried to step in.

"Shut up, Stefan." Bonnie didn't even look in his direction. "Did you even ask why they needed my blood?" 

"I did, but they wouldn't tell me!" Elena looked around nervously as the curtains in the room began whipping back and forth as if in the middle of a storm.

"And you still thought it was a good idea to give it to them?" Bonnie asked disbelievingly. The windowpanes cracked as the lights flickered ominously overhead. 

"Bonnie-" Stefan tried again.

"Fuck off, Stefan!" Bonnie waved a hand and he went flying into the wall. "Tell me, what would you have done when I told you no?" She stalked towards her childhood friend. "Would you have accepted it? Or tried to trick it out me?" 

"I had to do something!" Elena snapped back, "Damon was suffering, and you didn't even seem to care."

"Damon brought that on himself, Elena! I told his hard headed ass to stay out of it, he didn't, and it bit him in the ass. I did care, but I wasn't going to go rushing into anything just to cure him. I wasn't going to risk my life just because he couldn't handle not being the one with the biggest balls around."

"Hey!" She barely heard Damon beside her. 

"When Klaus wanted your blood to make Hybrids, we all banded together and said no. We fought him, for you! And you turn around and want to just give my blood up to anyone that asks? Do you know what my blood can do, Elena?" She speared Stefan with a glance, "How about you? Do you know what my blood can do?" 

"Bonnie. I found the coven, and I convinced Elena to talk to them." Stefan tried again.

She rounded on the green eyed vampire who, to his credit, stood tall in the face of her wrath. She shot a hand out and brought him to his knees, "Tell me, Stefan" Her eyes glowed as she mentally chanted the spell, "If I had said no, what would you have done?"

"I would have used Elena as a distraction while I took your blood." He said mechanically. Bonnie released him from the spell. "Just like with Abby, huh?" 

"Drop the barrier, Bonnie." Damon urged in her ear, but it was hard to hear him over the roaring in her head. 

"You don't give a shit about me, do you? Just what I can do for you. I've died for you over and over again. I brought your brother back twice, and I ended up trapped in an empty world with a goddamm psychopath, for you!" Bonnie shouted. Both Stefan and Elena wore confused looks on their faces, but Bonnie was on a roll. 

"Hell, I spent a whole summer dead and you didn't even notice because you were so focused on riding your new Salvatore dick to care, until you needed something." Everything was blurry due to the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

She sneered at Stefan, "You want your brother?" She turned to Elena, "You want to be with Damon so bad? I should throw you both in the tomb with him." They both blinked in surprise. Stefan took another step to stand closer to Elena. 

"Bonnie-" Elena reached a hand out to Bonnie, but Stefan grabbed it and swung her behind him. "If you want to punish someone, punish me. It was my idea."

Bonnie laughed, "Oh, Stefan, ever the gallant hero. She broke your heart and here you are, still willing to stand in front of a bullet for her. Surely you're not hoping she'll see you're the better brother and choose to go back to you?" Bonnie knew it was a low blow, but she wanted them to hurt like she was hurting. "How pathetic." She curled her lip in disgust. 

"Bonnie, please." Damon begged. She turned to look at him, then at the other occupants in the room. "Sure, Damon." Bonnie uncloaked him and watched Elena and Stefan's mouths drop open. 

"I came here tonight to tell you that the Gemini found a cure, and that Damon was free." Bonnie said simply. No one in the room moved towards one another. "What are you waiting for? Here's who you were willing to stab me in the back for, standing right here. Go to him." No one moved, and for some reason, that enraged Bonnie like nothing else.

She gripped Damon's arm and with the use of magic threw him at the two still standing with their mouth agape. "HERE! TAKE HIM!" Her chest heaved as she fought to control her magic, "Enjoy the very last thing I'm ever going to do for any of you." They all stared up at her. "I'm done. Don't call me for shit. You've all made your choices, now it's time for me to make mine. Goodbye." She slammed the door with so much magic that all the windows on the lower level exploded. 

****

 

"Who are you calling?"

"Elena, I'm gonna see if-ow!"

"I guess it's safe to say she doesn't want us calling Elena."

"Wait, can you call Liv?"

"Why?"

"Because none of us have Kai's number! If anyone can break through the barrier it's him."

"You all are bloody infuriating."

"…how in the actual hell did you get in here?"

"Care, not now."

"Then when? Cause none of this is normal. Bonnie has locked herself in her bathroom, Elena is somehow connected, which mean the Salvatores are involved too. Somehow Rebekah of all people has access to Bonnie's home, and no one is saying anything! Things have been weird for months, and I just want to help."

Bonnie heard the sincerity in the blonde's voice and felt a little hope inside, at least someone cared. She got out of the tub and dried herself off, donning an old pair of pajama's before opening the door. She nearly burst into tears at seeing her friends sitting around her bathroom door.

"We need to move into the living room."

Bonnie sat with her legs folded underneath her as she finished her story. She studied her hands nervously as she waited for someone to say something.

"Jesus Christ, Bonnie." Tyler breathed. "I don't even know what to say."

She yelped as she was smothered by blond curls, "If you think this changes anything, you are dead wrong!" Caroline loosened her grip as her eyes widened, "Oh I didn't mean dead, as in dead dead…."

Bonnie laughed, "Never change, Care." She hugged the baby vampire back.

"Bonnie." The group as a whole looked up to see both Salvatores and Elena at the door. Judging from their faces, they had heard the whole thing as well.

"I knew something about you was different!" Elena crowed as she turned to Stefan. "I told you!"

"You insufferable twit." Rebekah started, but sat back down when Bonnie held out a hand.

"You're right, I'm not the Bonnie that was here before. That Bonnie wouldn't have known how and where to get the cure. That Bonnie wouldn't have been able to disable Klaus as efficiently as I did. That Bonnie would have definitely died doing some other dumb shit for you. I'm not that Bonnie, not anymore. You can either accept it, or move the fuck out the way. Because that little button that you all like to push? That 'we need to help Elena' button? It's gone." Bonnie told the trio that stood in the door.

"So what, if it comes down to it you're just gonna let me die?" Elena asked, tears pooling in her eyes, but for the first time, Bonnie felt nothing. No tug to make it better, no instinctive rush to protect. Nothing.

She smiled, "Great thing about the cure, it renders your doppelgänger blood moot. It can't be used for anything. Klaus is gone, so unless you piss off someone, nobody is gonna be checking for you." Bonnie shrugged. "I gave you want you wanted, to be normal."

Elena looked to the other inhabitants of the home and found herself on the outside for once. She ducked her head and left, Stefan trailing behind her.

"Bonnie..." Damon struggled for something to say. "God, I had no idea that Alaric would go after you."

"I know." She said softly. "I know you were thinking of Elena, and that's the problem You, Stefan, and if I'm being honest, all of us put her first."

"Not me!" Rebekah yelled out.

Bonnie ignored her, "We all put her first, and I lived firsthand what that did. If we want to have any chance of all of us surviving, we need to all look out for each other. Even if that means someone not getting what they want right then and there."

"I get it. Just…..don't use this as an excuse to freeze her out. She feels really bad about going behind your back like that." Damon tried to plead his girlfriend's case.

Bonnie snorted, "But not bad enough to stay and even try and talk to me?" Bonnie gripped the door handle and slowly closed the door. "Go home, Damon."

 

****

"I am so jealous!" Caroline exclaimed as she sat on the bed watching Bonnie pack.

"You can come visit anytime, Care." Bonnie assured her.

"I know, but it's not gonna be the same. You're gonna be all the way over in California and I'll be stuck here.

Bonnie raises one shoulder, "I just figured it was time for a change of scenery."

"Right, and this had nothing to do with a certain former doppelgänger that is acting like an uber bitch?" Caroline raised a perfectly arched brow.

Bonnie said nothing. Her relationship with Elena had dwindled down to basically acquaintance status, she spoke more to Damon than she did to her once BFF. Bonnie had overheard her talking to Caroline when they believed Bonnie had been in the showers. Elena had said how hard it was for her to see Bonnie as her childhood friend, and that she was so different now.

Bonnie had wanted to go in and defend herself, but Caroline had beaten her to it. Calling Elena an idiot and laying it out for her in plain English that the only reason Elena was pissed was that she was no longer up on the pedestal that everyone put her on, and that she would have to deal with her problems herself now and not rely on Bonnie's magic.

When Bonnie had gone back into the room, Elena was gone. Caroline didn't look up from her studying as she addressed Bonnie, "I know you were there, I didn't say it because you could hear me, I said it because it was true." Bonnie had jumped on Caroline's bed, books and all to hug the baby vampire.

Because of the tension and the fact that Bonnie didn't really feel a need to stay in Mystic Falls anymore, she had decided to join Lucy in California to finish out her college years. Her grandmother's cottage would always belong to the Bennetts, so if Bonnie decided to come back, she always had a place to stay.

She had declined to live with Lucy, citing she knew her cousin was used to living alone and didn't want to cramp her style. She transferred to Cal State Channel Islands, majoring in Anthropology with a minor in Environmental Science. It was a smaller school, situated in between Lucy who lived in Santa Barbara, and the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles.

The small apartment that she rented was close to the campus, and was just enough space for Bonnie. Things were admittedly a little more expensive than she initially figured on, but between the money that she had in savings from her grandmother's life insurance, and the money that she was given by her father from the sale of their house, Bonnie knew she would be fine, as long as she didn't go crazy.

Being on the west coast also meant she was closer to Kai. He had generously offered her residence in one of the places that the Gemini owned, but she turned it down. The Gemini were already doing so much for her, she didn't want to take advantage of their generosity. She did allow him to introduce her to other coven members and allies that were near her for networking purposes.

Bonnie hadn't thought to tell her mother that she was transferring out to the west coast. So imagine her surprise when, after hanging out with her cousin all day, the doorbell rang and Lucy walked back in with Abby trailing after her.

"Is something wrong?" Bonnie looked from her mother to her cousin. She wasn't aware that Abby was in contact with Lucy, or vice versa.

Abby smiled faintly, "I'm not surprised you would think that, but no, nothing's wrong. Your father told me that you left Mystic Falls and moved out here." Bonnie frowned at that, since when did she and her father talk?

Abby read the confusion in Bonnie's face, "When he was selling the house, he contacted me to see if I wanted any of the things I left behind, and we got to talking." Abby was still standing, awkwardly fiddling with the strap on her purse. "I know I have no right to say this, but I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you for getting out of Mystic Falls."

"Why don't you have a seat, Abby?" Lucy interjected, "I was just about to make some tea, do you want a cup?" She smiled when Abby nodded and headed off into the kitchen.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Bonnie decided to break it, "So are you just vacationing…?" She let the question hang for a moment. A shadow crossed Abby's face before she looked down and said faintly, "Jaime is at UC San Diego, and I was visiting him for Spring Break."

"Oh." Bonnie said. She had long since accepted that her mother's relationship with Jaime would always be a sore spot for her. She often wondered what it was about him that got her mother to stay and raise him instead of the little girl she callously left behind. Sure, Abby had tried to explain why she left and stayed gone, but to Bonnie it all sounded like excuses. Especially since Abby knew what she would be leaving her daughter to deal with in Mystic Falls.

"How is he doing?" Bonnie asked, just to kill the heavy silence that permeated the air.

Abby smiled, "Oh, he's fine. He loves the west coast, says we should have moved out here a long time ago."

Bonnie snorted, "He means, before I found you and got you turned into a vampire, right?"

Abby's eyes widened and she shook her head fiercely, "No, I'm sure that's not what he meant. He really likes the ocean, that's all."

"Right." Bonnie sighed, "Look, you're off the hook." At her mother's puzzled face, she continued. "The fact that we're both in California right now doesn't mean that you should feel obligated to visit me when you visit him."

"I'm not…I don't" Abby started and stopped, trying to find the right words. "I don't feel obligated, Bonnie. I'm here to try and make amends, and have some kind of relationship with you."

"You couldn't try to have a relationship with me before now? Answer honestly, if I were still at Whitmore, would you have reached out to me?" Abby's silence spoke volumes. Bonnie nodded, "That's what I thought, I don't know why you're really here, but clearly it's not because-"

"I wanted to warn you about something." Abby blurted out.

"What?"

"What?"

Bonnie and Lucy replied at the same time. Lucy set her tray down and sat next to Bonnie, "Warn her about what?"

Abby addressed Bonnie, "I don't know who exactly, you've always been an interesting topic of choice for witches to gossip about, but this is different. My friend said that the witch in question wanted to use your blood to right a wrong. You haven't pissed off any witches lately, right?"

"No. I don't even really know any other witches outside of the Gemini Coven." Bonnie's mind was racing, what wrong could she have committed? Something clicked in Bonnie's mind, "Wait, you said they needed my blood, but not necessarily me?"

When Abby nodded, she sank back into the couch with a groan. She grabbed a throw pillow and held it to her mouth to muffle the scream that she let out. Why can't she get away from Mystic Falls and the insanity that occurred there?

"Okay, I take it that rings a bell?" Lucy asked warily.

"Unfortunately." Bonnie gave them a run down on what happened with the Augustine Society and how Damon ended up needing to be cured. When she got to the part about Elena and Stefan talking about giving her blood away in exchange for a cure, both Abby and Lucy swore out loud.

"No offense, cuz, but you've got some shitty ass friends." Lucy said.

"Why do you think I finally left?" Bonnie shot back.

"Okay, so do they know what coven it was?" Abby asked impatiently, only to huff out an indignant "of course" when Bonnie shook her head.

"So that girl was really willing to hand over your blood, just for Salvatore dick?" Lucy rolled her eyes, "She's never allowed in this house."

"We need to figure out who that was, and why they wanted your blood." Abby forged ahead.

"Why don't you ask your sugar daddy to do some digging?" Lucy elbowed Bonnie.

"First of all, ew. Secondly, please don't refer to him as my 'Sugar Daddy', it's demeaning to him and to me." Bonnie swatted her cousins' elbow away.

"Okay then what should I refer to him as? Friend, special friend, friend with benefits?" Lucy was sporting a shit eating grin.

"You can refer to him as Kai, as in his name." Bonnie rolled her eyes at her cousin.

"Kai…?" Abby interrupted. Bonnie had nearly forgot she was there. "You're talking about Kai Parker? The head of the Gemini Coven?"

"We're not dating, we're just…." Bonnie trailed off, not sure how to classify her thing with Kai, she decided to deal with it later. "Whatever we are, it's not important right now. I don't want him involved in this unless we have no choice, he's got enough to deal with being the head of a coven." Abby looked like she wanted to say something else, but wisely decided not to. Instead she promised to work her contacts to see if she could find out any more information.

Bonnie left Lucy's that afternoon feeling drained. She arrived at her apartment and immediately threw herself on her bed. She wanted to call back to Mystic Falls and light into her once BFF, but she wasn't in the mood for half-ass apologies or promises. She knew Elena had become short sighted when it came to the Salvatores, but in this case, she had thrown Bonnie into the path of a bus that nobody knew who was driving.

***

 

Somehow she managed to fall asleep, only to wake up to pounding on her door. "Wake the hell up, Bennett!" Bonnie rolled over and looked at the clock, dismayed to find it was already 8 in the morning. She'd forgotten that she was supposed to hang out with Liv today.

"God, you look like shit." Liv remarked when Bonnie opened the door to let her in.

"Thanks, Liv." Bonnie replied sarcastically.

"Well, it's the truth." Liv said defensively. "Are you still up for today? We can reschedule if you want."

"Nah, let me shower and change and we can go." Bonnie left her in the living room and took a quick shower. Soon they were on their way down to Huntington Beach, there were a few plants and supplies that Bonnie wanted to have on hand just in case. Liv had a few contacts independent of the Gemini Coven and needed to re-stock her own stash, so she had offered to take Bonnie with her. It would have been the perfect day, if Bonnie didn't feel as if she had a black cloud hanging over her head.

"You gonna tell me what the whole doom and gloom mood is about?" Liv asked. They had stopped at In N Out for a quick lunch, and were eating in Liv's jeep.

Bonnie shook her head, "I am so dumb. I kept thinking that because I basically saved everyone that everything would be good this go round. But instead, I've just created new problems. Mystic Falls is fine, but now I've got someone after me, and I don't even know why."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Liv frowned, "Does this have anything to do with why you transferred out here?"

Bonnie nodded and filled Liv in on what transpired between her and Elena. "That bitch." Liv mumbled around her mouth full of food. Bonnie nodded, "Yeah, and there's more." She told Liv about what Abby had revealed to her last night. "So, I've got someone gunning for me because they want my blood for god knows what, and I'm just…tired. I'm so tired of having to look over my damn shoulder, moving out here was supposed to be a fresh start."

"I could ask my brother-" Liv started.

"No!" Bonnie cut her off, "Don't ask Kai anything. I'll handle this on my own with Lucy and Abby. I'd like to keep the Gemini as far away from my dumpster fire of a life as I can." She could feel Liv studying the side of her face, "What?"

"I was talking about Luke." Liv said slowly. "He's still at Whitmore, and he can basically read the energies left behind by witches. I was going to suggest he figure out where the meeting took place and see if he can get a read."

"Oh." Bonnie went back to her food.

"You know you were obvious as hell, right?"

"Yeah, let's not talk about it now….or ever."

"Agreed."

 

****

 

In spite of the slow start, the day had actually ended up being fun. Bonnie loved living on the west coast, Los Angeles always had something happening. She dropped Liv off after making plans for them to hang out at the beach the next day. While going through her newly purchased loot she realized she hadn't spoken to Kai in a few days. Bonnie sprawled on her sofa as shot him a quick message.

-I had fun hanging with your sister today.

He was quick with his reply. -You could have had more fun with me. The invitation to spend her spring break up in Portland had been thrown on the table by Kai, but Bonnie wanted to spend time with her cousin.

-Seriously? You're still pouting?

-I'm a grown ass man, I don't pout.

-Okay, then. Bonnie smiled to herself as she imagined him with an exaggerated pout on his face. -What are you doing right now?

-Picturing you naked.

-I really hope you're alone right now.

-If by alone you mean in a coven meeting, then yeah, I'm alone.-

-KAI! You better be joking.- Bonnie was grateful she had decided to text him as opposed to calling.

-I'm joking. It's more like an informal meeting with a few others.

-That does not make me feel better, Parker.

-I bet I know how I can make you feel better, Bennett. Bonnie bit her lip as she pictured the look he must have on his face right now.

-Can you two please not do that while others are in attendance? It's gross. Bonnie's mouth dropped open and she felt her cheeks heat up as Joey's text came through.

-You're the one that's reading over my shoulder, Joseph. 

-Because you're grinning like an idiot. You're supposed to be coming up with a strategy for our shape shifter problem.

Bonnie shook her head, the two were probably sitting right next to each other texting. -It sounds like you're busy, I'll talk to you later.

-Call me later. I'll read you a bedtime story.

-Goodbye Kai."

Bonnie finished putting away her supplies and went to draw herself a bath. She had some new bedtime outfits that she wanted to show Kai when she skyped him later.


	7. Chapter 7

"Okay, I give!" Bonnie tapped out. "Jesus Kenny, are you trying to kill me?" Bonnie stayed flat on the ground wishing for an early death, or at least some kind of break.

"Nah, you're just distracted, get up Bennett." Bonnie groaned as she took his hand and stood on shaky legs. "You're not focusing, where is your mind right now?" He peered at Bonnie in concern, "We can stop if you really want to, I have plans with Luke anyway."

"Yeah, that might be best. I'm not in the right frame of mind." She grabbed for the life line that he offered her with both hands.

"Anything I can help with? I've been told I'm a great listener." He took a swig of water and leaned in closer, "Plus, it might help to get an outsider's perspective." Bonnie was tempted to bare all, it had been two months since Abby had dropped her bombshell about someone wanting her blood, and so far she and Lucy had heard nothing more.

"No thanks, this is something that I gotta work through myself." She sent him a half hearted smile, "But thanks for the offer." She left the training area and headed to her room to shower and relax. She was entirely too tense waiting for a threat that was still undefined.

It was quiet…too quiet.

Bonnie had finished her last semester and was currently in Portland for the summer. She figured it would be better for her to be surrounded by other experienced witches if anyone decided to try and ambush her. She filled her days with training and learning, and her nights hanging out with other Gemini members. She spent most of her later nights with Kai, either enjoying late night dates or just wrapped around each other.

 

****

 

They had both pretty much stopped pretending that something wasn't going on between them. Well, they had to when they were outed by Kai's daughters. They had just come back from one of their dates and were walking through the gardens. Kai was trying to convince Bonnie to dress up in her old cheerleading uniform and do a cheer for him.

Bonnie would later blame the amount of alcohol that she had imbibed on her next actions. She pulled him deeper in to the gardens, magically changed into her old Mystic Falls uniform, and started to perform a racier version of one of Mystic Falls cheers that she and Caroline had come up with one day. She finished with a flourish and a bit of a drunken stumble before she walked over and straddled his lap. Kai had one hand buried in her panties and Bonnie was on the verge of coming when they heard the whispers and giggles.

Bonnie had exploded from Kai's lap, switched back to her regular clothes, and tried to appear as if she hadn't been just about to come from their father's fingers. Kai had corralled them and marched them back into their beds. Along the way, the girls had taken delight in telling pretty much everyone that they came across that 'Daddy and Miss Bonnie were kissing in the garden!'

The news spread like wildfire throughout the compound and for the most part all Bonnie received were a few raised eyebrows, and snickers. His family had no issues with it, thankfully. There were a few council members who had concerns, possibly due their age difference and how much power and influence Kai could wield over Bonnie. But even that died down eventually. The only person that seemed to still have a problem with them was Kai's mother-in-law.

Annalise had cornered Bonnie once while she was in the library alone. The older woman had hissed that Bonnie was nothing but a whore taking advantage of a grieving widow. She had vowed to keep Bonnie away from her 'impressionable grandbabies' and vowed to send Bonnie back to where she came from.

She had told no one but Lucy, Caroline, and Rebekah about that conversation, all had various levels of advice on how to handle it. Both Lucy and Caroline had advocated for Bonnie to snatch her bald. Rebekah, surprisingly, had had the most mature response in advising Bonnie not to push, to let the woman get used to seeing them together, and to reassure her that Bonnie wasn't trying to take her daughters place.

It was sound advice, and while Bonnie understood the woman's hurt over her son in law seemingly moving on from her daughter, the amount of vitriol in her voice worried Bonnie. She didn't think the older woman would try anything, but Bonnie made sure to keep as far away from her and her cronies as possible.

 

***

 

Steam wafted out into the air as Bonnie opened the door to her bathroom, the shower had helped to ease the stiffness in her shoulders and she was feeling a lot better. She changed into some comfy clothes and booted up her computer, she wanted to see if Caroline was online. She missed her blond bubbly friend and was feeling a little homesick for Mystic Falls.

She threw her towel in the hamper, turned to her bed, and was surprised to see a box on her bed that wasn't there before. It was a smallish unwrapped box with no card attached. Bonnie made her way closer to the bed, more curious than afraid. Maybe it was a gift from Kai? Bonnie shrugged, it's not like anyone would try anything outrageous here while she was safely ensconced in the Gemini compound. She lifted the top of the box and peered in…

And promptly scrambled up off the bed.

Bonnie shot over to the other side of her room to put as much space between her and the object that was in the box. Her mind was racing, while heart was beating a million miles a minute.

How the hell had someone gotten a hold of an ascendant?

She knew the ascendant couldn't travel between worlds, so this one couldn't be hers. There was another ascendant that was created to place Klaus in his prison world, but for obvious reasons, that one was wasn't made public. Logically, Bonnie knew there had to be at least one more, the one created specifically for Kai by his father, but she knew that one was safely locked away under various levels of magic.

So where the fuck had this one come from?

Bonnie retreated back into the bathroom after grabbing her phone, she needed to figure out what to do, and looking at that box was wreaking havoc with her ability to think rationally. The first person she called was her mother.

"Bonnie?" Abby answered on the first ring. It was rare that they spoke on the phone, rarer still that it was Bonnie initiating the contact.

"There is an ascendant on my bed!" She whisper screamed into the phone. "No, wait. Not just some ascendant, the same one that I used to get out of 1994!"

"You need to get away from it." Abby said forcefully. "Matter of fact, leave the place entirely."

Even though she knew her mother couldn't see her, Bonnie could only nod. Every second that she spent in the vicinity of the ascendant only made her more paranoid.

"I can't leave until I speak with Kai." Bonnie said to her mother.

"Why? Every minute you stay there you're putting yourself at risk. You can call him from the plane or after you get back here." Abby pressed.

Bonnie shook her head, "No, that wouldn't be fair. Besides, he needs to know that someone here is sneaking around behind his back with the coven's artifacts."

She could hear her mother sigh, "Fine, I'll come to you, then we'll both get out of there. I'm already at Lucy's so I can be there in a few hours." Abby's voice softened, "We'll figure this out, Bonnie. I promise."

Bonnie hung up and took a few deep breaths in order to calm herself down. Peeking out the bathroom door and noticing the package was right where she left it, she skirted around the bed and burst out into the hallway.

Bonnie grabbed the first person that she saw, "Where's Kai?"

"Umm, meeting with the high council right now, I think." The girl answered, eyes wide at Bonnie's obvious distress. "But I think they're almost done-"

Bonnie didn't wait for her to finish, she bolted out of the residence area and made her way to the main part of the compound. Once she was out in the open she deliberately slowed her steps as to not seem like she was running. She made it to the meeting area just as they were adjourning.

She stood to the side and watched the elder council members flow out of the room, making sure to greet each and every one that passed. Almost every person smiled and greeted her back, except of course for Annalise and her followers. They swept by Bonnie without so much as a glance in her direction.

"You'll have to forgive Annalise." Bonnie turned to face the older Hispanic man that was lingering in the hallway. Manuel Garcia had been one of the first people Bonnie met when she first came to Portland, he was an older man in his mid 40's who always seemed to have a smile on his face. "It's a hard thing to lose a child, even harder to watch while your grandkids get closer to someone that's not their mother."

Bonnie tilted her head in confusion, she wasn't ready to be anybody's mother yet. Annalise had nothing to worry about in that regard.

"She's afraid that you'll replace her daughter in the girls' minds." He clarified for her. "Everyone knows that the marriage between Kai and Lisa was mostly for the coven." His warm brown eyes seemed to bore into Bonnie' skull, "That marriage, and the fact that there were children born from it, solidified her place in the coven. You threw us all a curveball when you showed up, because I don't know if you realize it, but with you being a Bennett, should you and Kai ever have kids, Emily and Genevieve would be out of the running for the merge."

Bonnie blanched at that, sure she knew about the merge and what it entails, but the thought of sacrificing one of her children somewhere down the road was a big reason why she was religious about her birth control. If something were to happen, she already knew that she would keep the baby (or babies), seeing as she only had a few family members left in the world. No way was she ever going to give up a child for some ritual.

"Hmm, that's interesting." Manuel spoke as if he were talking to himself. Bonnie shook herself out of her stupor, how dumb was she not to remember that Manuel held the ability to read not only auras, but thoughts as well. She quickly slammed the lid on whatever she must have been emitting, but she knew that he had probably already seen too much.

"Oh here's Kai. You two kids have fun." With a wave he set off, whistling something that sounded familiar. Bonnie was turning to face Kai when she felt his hand wrap around her midsection and pull her into the now empty room. Bonnie opened her mouth to scold him, but only managed to get part of his name out before he sealed his mouth over hers. He backed her into the wall and kept her there with his weight pressed against her.

Bonnie took a moment to melt into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. For just a little while she wanted to live in the moment and enjoy what was in front of her before she had to deal with the nastiness that was her life.

Kai broke the kiss but stayed pressed against her, "This is starting look like a dream that I had not too long ago. Wanna help me test the sturdiness of my desk?"

"What?" It took Bonnie a second to get her focus back, then his words registered. "No! My god this is where your council meets!"

"I could use some good memories to help me get through the excruciatingly long meetings that some people insist are necessary."

"No." Bonnie was adamant.

He kissed under her ear and sighed dramatically, "Fine, I guess we'll have to discuss desk sex some other time. What are you doing here? I know you like to steer clear of any official Gemini business."

Bonnie's stomach plummeted as she remembered why she came to see him. "We need to talk."

Kai's eyebrows shot up, "Those words are never good, what's wrong?" He led her over to the long table where the council members sat during meetings. He took the head seat and Bonnie sat to his immediate right.

"I'm leaving." Bonnie wanted to kick herself for just blurting it out like that. "I mean, I have to leave." She filled him in on the events that led to her leaving Mystic Falls and ending with her finding the ascendant on her bed, and Abby being on her way to Portland.

Kai listened to everything stone faced, not saying anything until she finished. He ran a hand through his hair, "Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"

Bonnie looked down and shrugged, "Before this, I didn't want to involve you or the Gemini because this has nothing to do with you guys. I'd always handled everything on my own, why should this be any different?"

"Yeah and look where it got you." Kai countered. "Plus, whoever it was managed to get past all the layers of magic and cloaking that I placed on it to retrieve it from my personal vault."

Bonnie closed her eyes, she had been hoping that it wasn't the ascendant for the prison world that was initially for Kai, but now held his father. "Okay, so the next question then becomes, who has access to your personal vault and how to get into it?"

His eyes narrowed, "Only a handful of people." He frowned as the rest of Bonnie's words registered, "Wait, Abby is coming here?"

Bonnie nodded, "Yeah, then we're both leaving to head back down to Lucy's."

"What? Does she not think you'll be protected here?" He leaned back in his chair. "She chooses now to be a mother?"

Bonnie frowned, "She's trying, okay? And you can't tell me that if Em or Gen were in danger, you wouldn't do the same thing."

"Oh, so you think you're in danger now?"

Bonnie tilted her head, "Why are you getting pissed?"

"I'm not."

"Could've fooled me."

"I take offense to the fact that your mother, who has been largely absent from your life, now wants to swoop in and try and play concerned mother at my, and my coven's, expense." Kai grit his teeth.

"So, you're mad that she's stepping on your toes? You wanna be the big damn hero in this story?" Bonnie couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What does it hurt if she's also here to help? I would think you'd be thankful for the help, seeing as you've got someone in your coven that's doing shit right under your nose." Bonnie knew that was a low blow, but she wanted him to see beyond his ego.

His eyes flashed, "Don't tell me how to run my coven, Bonnie."

"Don't tell me not to be thankful for my mother being concerned for me." She countered.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." His hand sought hers, after a moment's hesitation, she took it. "I am the leader of this coven, and this shit happened on my watch. I want to make it right, I need to make it right. Having Abby here will be a visual reminder that I was caught sleeping on the job. No leader wants to see his lapses in judgement flaunted out for everyone to see."

"You're one person, Kai. You can't be everywhere. Abby isn't coming here to rub your nose in it, she's coming for her daughter. Plain and simple." Bonnie looked at their entwined hands on the table, "And after a lifetime of her not showing up, or her being a disappointment when she does show, is it wrong of me to be happy that she's attempting to mend fences?"

"No, of course not. This just isn't the way I thought I'd be seeing Abby again."

Bonnie let out an undignified snort, "I keep forgetting that you had a whole life before I showed up. You knew Grams, of course you would have known Abby too." She side-eyed him, "Did you two ever...?" She trailed off, not even wanting to say it.

"No. Even back then Abby wasn't really one for sticking around. She rarely came with Sheila when she visited, and I only really saw her at coven events. I do remember being pissed at her for being so blasé about her abilities as a witch. She had all that power and just didn't care."

"Meanwhile you had no power, and was treated horribly for it." Bonnie said softly.

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

There was silence as both got lost in their thoughts. Finally Kai squeezed her hand, "Abby will be welcomed here, you don't have to worry about that. I'll send someone to pick her up-" he held out a hand when Bonnie looked like she was about to interrupt, "Someone from my family that I trust, and bring her here. In the meantime, you're my shadow."

"Yeah, cause that won't ring any bells at all." Bonnie rolled her eyes.

"Actually it makes the most sense, everyone knows about us now, why not show it? This way it'll look like you can't stand to be apart from me." Kai grinned.

"Or maybe like you can't stand to be away from me." Bonnie countered stubbornly. Kai laughed and pulled her onto his lap, "Either way, you're gonna be right by my side until we figure this out." He placed a kiss on her neck. Bonnie smiled sadly, Kai was confident that they'd figure this out, so was Abby. However, with her luck, she knew that it would get so much worse before it got better.

 

****

 

When Abby arrived she was brought straight into the gardens where both Bonnie and Kai waited. From the outside, it would simply look like Kai was doing the normal "meet the mother of the girl I'm seeing" ritual.

Once Abby released Bonnie from her hug, she turned to where Kai was standing nearby stone-faced. "Hello Malachai."

"Abigail."

"Have you found out who stole the ascendant and put it in Bonnie's room?" Abby pressed. "And for what reason?"

"No." Kai answered tonelessly, "When I went to retrieve it, it was already gone."

"Of course it was." Abby scoffed.

"Is there something you want to say?" Kai stepped closer, "Because now would be the perfect time to get it out."

"How could you let this happen?" She hissed, "You know damn well what could happen if Bonnie is around that ascendant."

"Yeah, I do know. Which is why I wanted to get it back."

"Wait, what?" This was the first time Bonnie had heard of any adverse actions to her being near an ascendant.

"You haven't told her?" Abby looked horrified.

"Doesn't look like you were too forthcoming either, mother of the year." Kai sneered.

"Seriously you two?" Bonnie wanted to scream, they were both older than she was, but acting like children. "Obviously you know something that I don't, what am I missing?"

Abby and Kai exchanged uneasy glances, it looked like neither one of them wanted to be the one to spill any more bad news. Until Abby took the lead.

"Bonnie, there's a good chance that-"

She was cut off by the sound of giggles and the arrival of two rambunctious little girls who inexplicably began to sing Happy Birthday to Bonnie.

"Girls what are you doing? It's not Bonnie's birthday." Kai traded confused glances with Bonnie.

"Grandma told us it was your birthday." Emily asked, her smile was slowly being replaced by a frown.

"We left a present for you on your bed!" Genevieve piped up, her face mirroring her twins.

"Oh my god." Bonnie gasped. That crazy old woman had used her granddaughters to get the ascendant from Kai's vault. Bonnie knew for a fact that they had access to it. While it was true that that was where he stored many coven artifacts like valuable Gemini grimoires, ancient scrolls that were passed down from leader to leader…

It also held items that once belonged to his late wife and the girls' mother.

Kai kept pictures of her around so the girls wouldn't forget her face, but there were more pictures, hand written letters and notes, even recordings that Kai was saving to give the girls when they got older. No wonder Kai hadn't noticed, it was set up to trigger an alarm when anyone else tried to open it, but his own flesh and blood? Could come and go as they pleased, and Kai wouldn't be any wiser.

"So there's no party?" Emily asked, her lower lip poking out.

"Where is this party supposed to be?" Bonne knelt down, making sure not to sound too urgent.

"Here, in the garden near the gazebo!"

"We can show you, we spent allll morning setting up!"

Their faces cleared and they grabbed Bonnie and Kai's hands and led them to the gazebo where there was a table stacked with gifts of many sizes. It was set up for a birthday party, sure, but there was nobody else there.

"You need to go back to the house, I'll start going through the gifts to find the ascendant." Abby whispered in Bonnie's ear. She didn't want to crush the little girls spirits, their enthusiasm had ramped back up and were now chanting 'cake, cake, cake'.

Bonnie got a better idea of how to determine which box held the ascendant, she called the girls back to her, "Which was the present that grandma said I had to open?" They both ran to the table and pointed to a box that looked like the one that Bonnie had on her bed earlier.

"This one!" They said in unison.

"Great job!" Kai gathered them both close, "Even though it's not Miss. Bonnie's birthday, we can still have cake." Scanning the table and noticing there were no plates or silverware, he pretended to think "now where did I put the plates?"

"I'll get some!" With a pop of magic, they disappeared. Presumably to find and bring back the missing items.

"It's not in here." Bonnie whipped around and Abby held the box upside down, clearly showing that there was nothing inside.

"Are all the boxes empty?" Bonnie asked, moving to go to the table herself. But Kai held her back with one arm, "Bonnie, I didn't tell you this before but-" He was interrupted by Abby's yell. Bonnie watched in horror as Abby pulled her bloody hand out of a big box. There was a whirring sound and before she could move, Abby disappeared much like the girls had. "NO!"

Except Bonnie knew her mother didn't just pop into the kitchen for silverware.

The box Abby had been holding tumbled to the ground and Bonnie could see the ascendant still clicking. The girls rematerialized right next to the box at that moment, and Bonnie didn't hesitate to dash forwards and forcibly throw them back towards Kai. The last thing she saw before her vision went dark was Kai clutching a daughter under each arm.

 

****

 

Bonnie landed on the ground with a groan of pain. Why couldn't this damn thing ever have her land on something soft? Shaking off her grogginess, she looked around to get a feel for where she was currently. Her jaw dropped as she took in the blood splattered walls, and the nagging familiarity with the house.

She was back in the 1994 prison world that she escaped from.

Suddenly she remembered Annalise's threat that she was gonna send Bonnie back to where she came from. The old bitch must have known that if Bonnie were to ever portal jump again, she'd end up back where she started. That also meant both Kai and Abby knew as well, seeing as they were both trying to keep from being near the ascendant.

"So nice of you to join us, Ms. Bennett."

Bonnie didn't recognize the voice, but she knew who she would find when she turned her head.

"How rude of me to not introduce myself. My name is Joshua Parker." He was sitting in an armchair with a roaring fire behind him.

"How?" She croaked out. There was no rhyme or reason why this Joshua Parker was in the blood soaked home of the original Kai Parker. They were from two different timelines, it should have been impossible.

"How did I manage to get here?" He gave a short laugh, "You didn't really think that as prior leader I didn't make it my business to know everything there was to know about Prison Worlds? Including how to jump from one to another?"

"Where's my mother?" Bonnie knew the time between Abby showing up and her appearance, Joshua hadn't had much time, so Abby still had to be somewhere in the vicinity.

"Oh, Abigail is a little tied up at the moment." He waved a hand aimlessly, "I was a little disappointed when it was her that came through initially and not you, but you proved true to form."

"You know nothing about me. We've never even met."

"No, we haven't, but I've still got eyes and ears everywhere. You've made an impression on certain members of my coven."

Bonnie raised her eyebrows at that, surprised that the exiled man still considers the coven as his. "So what do you want?" She got straight to the point, the less time she spent here, the better.

"I need your blood." Joshua was blunt.

"You have Abby as well, she's also a Bennett."

"Her blood has been tainted by her stint as a vampire." He scoffed. "Yours, on the other hand, is pure."

"What for? If you want to get out of here, I can let you out. Of course Kai is going to just lock you back up again, though. Or maybe skip all that and finally kill you, but hey, it's your choice." Bonnie tried to stall for time.

"I appreciate your concern for my well-being, but it's not warranted." He pulled out a syringe, and Bonnie scrambled to get up from the floor. "No need to run, this will only pinch. If your idiotic vampire friends had managed to get your blood like they were supposed to, we wouldn't be here right now."

"What?"

"Oh, did you not know? Annalise was so sure that she had them convinced, but oh well." He still looked like he was just having a relaxing sit by the fire.

"That was Annalise? How did she even know about what was going on there?" Bonnie thought back, she had always tried to downplay any mentions of her Mystic Falls companions. Especially since most of the Gemini were stuck in their ways.

"Oh, she's taken a special interest in you. You see, she stumbled across a spell that would let her resurrect her beloved daughter. All it takes is blood from a powerful witch….and that witch's body, obviously." He chuckled, "Of course she has no idea that the spell won't work, she's not powerful enough to raise the dead, even with the combined magic of her little circle of friends. I would say she'll join Lisa on the other side, but since you've already taken care of that for me, she'll just die from overuse of magic."

Bonnie put the pieces together, "She didn't just stumble across that spell, did she? You put it in her path, and you used her grief over her daughter dying to manipulate her into helping you." As much as Bonnie hated the other woman's actions, a part of her understood her motivation. She remembered what it was like to overdo it with magic. When she had revived Jeremy in that cave, that brief feeling of euphoria, followed by unimaginable pain. At least she had had her grams and the other side to fall back on, Annalise would truly be dead if she went through with her plan.

"It wasn't hard." Joshua confessed, "I can't physically leave this world, but I've found ways to communicate when I needed to. A whisper here and there, written notes in books that can be sent through, a recurring dream in which that person has everything she's ever wanted." He leaned closer to Bonnie as if to tell her a secret, "There are all kinds of ways to get people to bend to your will, just figure out what they want, and make them believe they can actually have it."

"No matter who gets hurt in the process, right?" Bonnie snarked. 'Do you even care about your granddaughters?"

"Of course I do." He looked like he was offended Bonnie even asked the question, "As soon as I'm free and my son is here in my place, I'll be sure to bring them up the right way. The Gemini way-" Bonnie watched in amazement as he suddenly pitched forward and landed on the floor in a heap. Abby was standing behind his chair with a bloody brick in her hands.

"He's always been a talker." Abby threw the brick and grabbed Bonnie in a bone crushing hug.

"I think I've worked out why I was not supposed to be near another ascendant." Bonnie said dryly.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I really thought Kai would have." Abby apologized.

"No time for that right now, we need to find a way to restrain him before he wakes up, then we need to find the ascendant to get out of here and warn Kai." Bonnie chose to focus on the more immediate threat.

"Where was it the last time?" Abby asked.

"I don't know" Bonnie replied helplessly, "that kai already had it when we met him in Mystic Falls."

"It was made here in Portland, he wouldn't trust mom with it all the way across the country." Abby theorized. "So he must have it nearby."

Bonnie looked at Joshua's slumped over body that was now tied to his chair, if he really was Kai's father, then that would mean he'd keep it with him at all times. Especially if he were expecting to use it relatively soon after she arrived.

"It's on him." Bonnie said with certainty. "It has to be."

They both looked at each other, wondering who would be the one to go check when Abby darted forward and picked up the brick, and hit Joshua over the head twice in quick succession.

"What the hell, mom?" Bonnie stood frozen in shock.

"Just wanted to make sure he stayed out while I searched him. We're not doing any dumb horror movie clichés here." She quickly searched him, and just like Bonnie predicted, the ascendant was tucked away in a pocket of the coat he was wearing.

"Okay, let's go." Once they were both outside, Bonnie took a moment to breathe. That was the relatively easy part, they still needed to get back to Mystic Falls and wait for the exact time to portal jump.

 

****

 

It was the weirdest road trip Bonnie had ever been on.

She and Abby had stolen the car right outside the Parker home, driven to the city and swapped that for something that would get them to Mystic Falls faster. Since they were back in 1994 they once again had to rely on maps to navigate their way across the country. Bonnie had taken a camera and extra rolls of film to document their journey. If nothing else went right, they would still have this time together as mother and daughter.

They didn't dawdle too much, knowing full well that Joshua would be, at the most, only a day behind them. Soon enough they were speeding past the familiar welcome sign. Bonnie felt a little bit of the anxiety that she was feeling ease up, they were almost there.

She led Abby to the specific spot in the woods and together they unloaded the tools that Bonnie had insisted that they'd need in order to access the perfect spot.

"Ugh, who did this the last time?" Abby stopped shoveling to wipe her brow.

"Damon." Bonnie admitted. "I figured he was the vampire, he could do the heavy lifting."

"The one time I wish he was around." Abby grumbled to herself, resuming her digging.

"Right?"

It took them most of the night to dig down into the cave. Sometime in the early dawn, they retired to Grams' cottage to rest a little before heading back to catch the eclipse. Bonne knew Abby had set up a warning perimeter around both the cave and where they were resting. Before they left the cozy home, Abby ran back to her mother's room and grabbed a few things to take back with her.

Bonnie couldn't see Joshua, but she could sense he was here. It was the same feeling that she'd had when Kai was playing hide and seek with her and Damon. He didn't come near the house, but she just knew he was there. They decided against using the same car that they came in, figuring it was better to be safe than sorry. Bonnie once again hot-wired a car and they set off.

They arrived at the cave with minutes to spare, Abby once again reinforced her circle, and Bonnie wasted no time in cutting her palm and starting the spell. Out the corner of her eye, she spotted movement behind Abby, but she didn't stop. Motioning with her head to her mother, she let her know that Joshua was there, but he was already staggering into view holding a cross-bow.

The ascendant clicked open and started its movement, Bonnie glanced up and for a second, the world blurred and it was Kai standing in front of her once more. Bonnie's eyes widened as she remembered what came next.

Apparently Abby knew what was coming too, Bonnie watched in what seemed like slow motion as Joshua pulled the trigger the same time that Abby stepped in front of Bonnie, her body blocking the path of the arrow. Abby clutched at the arrow as she deliberately stepped out of the circle and collided with Joshua. She glanced at Bonnie and gave her a sad smile, "I love you, baby girl."

 

****

 

Bonnie came to in the woods, at the edge of the falls.

This damn thing really loves just dumping me in random places. She huffed to herself as she rolled over to lay on her back. She remembered Abby's sacrifice and wept softly, no matter what she did, it seemed that she was destined to never have both of her parents in her life at the same time.

She's not sure how long she laid there sniffling, but soon she started shivering. She figured she could head to her Grams' place and call Kai from there to warn him about his father. She trudged through the forest and soon was standing before the one place that she could honestly say always felt like home.

"Well, well, well. Llook who came back from the dead." Turning around she spotted Caroline walking towards her. "What kind of fucked up trade is this? My mother dies and you come back." The blond was wearing a black dress that didn't really seem to be her normal style.

"Wait, your mom died?" Bonnie was aghast. Why didn't Caroline tell her?

Caroline rolled her eyes, "Oh right, the whole you've been trapped in a prison world thing. Here's the summary, she had cancer, now she's dead."

"When did this happen? I just talked to you last week!" Bonnie was certain she was having some sort of brain twitch. She would have remembered if Caroline had said anything about Liz having cancer. She glanced at the baby vamp, something was off about her.

"Um, no you most certainly did not. My carrier does not do world to world calling." She tossed her hair over her shoulder, still looking blankly at Bonnie.

"You turned off your humanity." It wasn't a question. If Liz Forbes truly did just die, her Caroline would be a wreck, but this person in front of her was stone cold.

"Points for the un-dead witch!" Caroline clapped. "Honestly I don't even know why it's such a big deal. It's not like I don't know how to control myself, I'm not Damon or Elena."

"Caroline, what's happened?" Bonnie was starting to get frantic. Something wasn't right here.

"I just told you. Jeez, why am I supposed to be glad you're back?"

"No," Bonnie brushed past the barb, "I mean what's happened since I went away?"

Another eye roll, "Let's see, you used your anchor-ness to let everyone pass through you, except Damon for some reason. We all thought you two died, but then Damon comes crashing back a few weeks ago, and then this Kai guy showed up. Turns out he's Luke and Liv's hot, older, psycho child killing brother who is also related to Jo-" She stops and shakes her head, "Oh that's right you don't know Jo, but anyways they were supposed to merge when they were kids but like I said, child killer, so they locked him away but he got out and merged with Luke. So Luke's dead-"

"Oh no." Bonnie whispered as Caroline rambled on.

She was back in her original world.


	8. 8

I really don't want to be here. Bonnie thought to herself as she took another shot.

She was currently sitting at the bar in the Mystic Grill, hoping to dull her senses enough to get her through the next few hours. The place was packed with a mix of local residents and out of town guests who were gathered to celebrate the impending marriage of Alaric and Jo.

She's been back in her world for around two months now. Having to readjust to a life that she had been so glad to leave behind. Her father was still dead, Abby and Lucy were god knows where, Caroline's humanity was still off, and Bonnie was back to not existing unless someone needed something.

Like attending an engagement party for Alaric and someone that she didn't even know.

She eyed the bride to be, currently standing on the other side of the room beaming with happiness. 'Well at least someone is having a good time tonight.' Bonnie thought sardonically as she slammed down another shot.

"Wanna take it easy, Bon?" Stefan asked.

"Wanna get a stake shoved through your heart, Ripper?" Bonnie spared him the barest of glances. It seemed like he had drawn the short straw tonight. Bonnie knew the others were puzzled by her standoffishness and sharper than usual tongue. They had taken to handling her in batches. Well, when they remembered she existed, that was.

Caroline running around without her humanity, and the wedding meant that whatever Bonnie was dealing with naturally took a backseat in comparison. Which she really didn't mind so much, it gave her a chance to scour through all of the grimoires she'd collected over the years to try and find something on ascendants, and how to make one. She hadn't had any luck on that front, so she was psyching herself up for the next step:

Actually asking Kai about it.

She had flat out refused to be a part of the wedding prep and as such, had done an excellent job of steering clear of him or any other Gemini members that were in town. Tonight at the engagement party was the first time she'd even seen Kai since she came back. Seeing him work the room as coven leader only made her heart ache for her Kai. This one was all wrong, he was too young and he didn't have the gravitas that her Kai possessed. It was like a puzzle piece that technically fit, but you could tell it wasn't meant to actually be there.

She's not sure what vibes she was giving off, because no one, save St. Stefan, had even tried to approach her all night. Sure, she'd seen the looks thrown her way, and heard the whispers as she passed, but no actual contact. Which was fine, she actually preferred it that way. She just needed to get through this weekend and then they'd be gone, and she would be able to continue to sulk in peace.

"We need all of us on our game if we're gonna keep an eye on Caroline." Stefan's voice kept buzzing in her ear.

"Jesus Christ." Bonnie swore, "Caroline is fine. She handled turning into a vampire like a pro, and she's doing the same with having her humanity off. Out of everyone here, she is the last person that you should be worried about."

"Are you saying we should be worried about you?" Stefan asked.

Bonnie chuckled bitterly, "Oh c'mon Stef, don't be silly, nobody worries about me. Why should they? I'm Bonnie Bennett, no matter how many times I die, or how many times I lose someone close to me, I'm going to be fine." She glances over his shoulder to see Caroline storming across the room to speak with a waiter. "You should probably go play hero right now, it looks like Caroline is about to eat that poor waiter."

Bonnie could see the struggle in his face, he knew something was wrong with her, but he didn't want to leave Caroline to her own devices. Bonnie arched an eyebrow, knowing what he would choose. Sure enough, he let out a sigh and turned to go corral the humanity-less vampire.

Bonnie was turning to go back to her now replenished drink when she saw something that made her take in a sharp breath. Kai was sitting at one of the assigned Gemini tables surrounded by his fellow coven members, and to his immediate right sat the woman who he'd married and had children with in her alternate world.

This Lisa was older, obviously, but she didn't look all that much different from the pictures that she'd seen scattered all around Kai's house. She could definitely see where Emily and Geneviève got their looks, they were spitting images of their mother. She watched as Lisa leaned in close to Kai to say something to him and they both laughed.

Bonnie felt her heart ache, it seemed like they would pick up where they left off, and she didn't see a ring on Lisa's finger (although that didn't necessarily mean anything nowadays). Kai was leaning over to whisper in his companion's ear when his eyes shot up and met Bonnie's. He didn't pause in what he was doing, he spoke to Lisa while keeping his gaze fixed on Bonnie.

Never was it clearer to her than right now that she was dealing with a different man. Her Kai would have winked and made some sort of lewd gesture to get her to laugh. This Kai did nothing of the sort, he just….stared at her. She knew that he had merged with Luke, and wondered what was going through his mind right now.

Their staring contest was broken by Caroline coming up to her at the bar, "Can you believe that asshole?" She grumbled, "'Caroline, you can't attack the waiters'" She did a passable impression of Stefan, "As if I would lower my standards, he's a waiter! And not even a cute one at that!"

Bonnie snorted, "Yeah, cause that's the bar you should be setting." She grabbed her drink, "I'm gonna go chill on the patio. There's way too many people in here." She made her way to the double doors, and even though she kept her eyes focused ahead, she could feel the weight of someone's gaze on her the whole way out.

 

***

 

Outside Bonnie took in big gulps of air, relishing in the relative quietness of the space compared to inside the restaurant. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander and thought about the world she had just left.

What were they doing?

Was Kai trying to get her back?

Was Abby really dead?

"You have the weight of the world on your shoulders, little one." The voice came from the dim corner of the patio. "Or should I say, two worlds?" From the darkness Manuel emerged. Bonnie didn't even try to deny it, she knew he'd probably read her mind already.

"How are you Mr. Garcia?" Bonnie asked tiredly.

"Better than you are, I can tell you that."

She laughed as she took another drink, "Yeah, I'd say that's the truth. So what can you tell me?"

"I know what you're looking to do, and it's possible," He started. Bonnie's heart jumped, then he spoke again, "however, do you really want to jump worlds once more?"

Bonnie looked at him incredulously, "I would jump worlds in the middle of this conversation if I had the option. No offense of course." She hurried to add.

He chuckled softly, "None taken I assure you. But why? Why not try and make what you have here work for you?"

Bonnie sighed, "Because the people and situations here are totally different. I can't have here what I had there, too much has happened."

"People or just Malachai?" The older man lifted an eyebrow.

Bonnie ignored the part about Kai, "My father is still dead, my mother and Lucy are absent, Klaus and his siblings are still out there somewhere. I'm just so sick of feeling this way." Her gaze involuntarily found Kai and Lisa again. "Why can't I want to go back to a world where I'm actually happy?"

"I'm not here to lecture you or to try and change your mind, I was just wondering." They both went silent for a while, lost in their individual thoughts.

Tyler poked his head out and gestured towards Bonnie. She turned to Manuel, "I have to go, but how long will you be in Mystic Falls? I'd like to speak with you again."

"I'll be leaving with the rest of the coven the day following the wedding." Bonnie slumped her shoulders, she genuinely liked hanging around the jovial man. "Do you think you would ever be open to visiting the Gemini somewhere down the road?" He asked with a cheeky grin.

Bonnie rolled her eyes, "I'll have to get back to you on that one." She gave him a quick hug, told him he was invited over to her Gram's place, and followed Tyler inside.

 

***

 

Bonnie had steadfastly refused to have anything to do with wedding planning, except in one area, the music. She had convinced Elena to slip in a few songs that were designed to spark a sense of nostalgia in Caroline. She knew from dealing with no humanity Elena that being outright forceful wouldn't work, so Bonnie had spent the last few weeks making seemingly innocuous comments and taking Caroline on a stroll down memory lane under the guise of Bonnie needing to clean out her father's place.

The idea had come when Caroline had asked bluntly why she was getting rid of so much stuff and Bonnie came clean with her about her time in the other world. She saw the baby vamp visibly struggle to keep her feelings in check before her mask of not caring slipped back into place. Her brief break was enough to give Bonnie the idea of slowly bringing her friend back around.

She kept the people in the know small, she didn't want the Salvatores or Elena to mess it up by giving it away or being heavy handed, so as far as they knew, Bonnie was only babysitting and trying to keep Caroline from killing anyone. It wasn't hard to do, she and Caroline had come to an agreement that worked for both of them. Caroline wouldn't go off the rails, and Bonnie wouldn't try to micromanage her.

Bonnie stood watching with Matt on one side and Caro on the other as both Jo and Alaric made some sort of speech thanking everyone for coming.

"Anyone wanna place bets on how long this one will last?" Caroline snickered.

Bonnie pretended to think, "She's a witch, even though she gave up her magic, carrying the covens only heirs, if Damon wants to kill this one, he's gonna need a whole lot of help." She hid her smile as she saw Damon and Elena's heads both turn in their direction. Bonnie shrugged carelessly "I'm just saying."

"Have I mentioned how much I love this Bonnie?" Caroline gleefully said. "Oh, look who finally decided to show up." Bonnie glanced at the entrance to see Jeremy enter, he paused as he spotted the two separate groups. Bonnie was at a table with Caroline, Tyler, and Matt situated on the far side of the restaurant. While Stefan, Damon, and Elena were all grouped around a table near the front. After a bit of indecision, he headed towards his sister, but took the long way so he could pass by her table.

He greeted Matt and Tyler with the normal manly hug, but steered clear of Caroline when she flashed her fangs at him. "Hey baby Gilbert, you are looking edible this evening." Bonnie had to agree, she knew Jeremy hated dressing up, but whenever he did, the outcome was always nice to look at. His dark suit was matched with a light colored shirt that he wore with no tie, and left the top button undone.

When he reached her she accepted his hug gratefully, squeezing him tight before letting go. "We'll talk later, okay?" He nodded and dropped a kiss on her forehead before moving on to greet his sister. She would never regret getting back together with Jeremy, but their relationship, at least romantically, had run its course. They both knew it, and it was just a matter of finally pulling the plug.

"Please don't tell me we're setting up for round 3?" Caroline took a sip of her drink.

Bonnie shook her head decisively, "Definitely not."

"Maybe someone should tell Mr. Sexy Coven Leader that, cause judging by his look, Jer bear is in danger." She continued nonchalantly. The whole table whipped their heads over to spot Kai burning a hole in Jeremy's head.

"Jesus Christ." Bonnie rolled her eyes.

 

***

 

After the speeches were done and people were mingling amongst themselves, Bonnie was dancing with Caroline to an old Mariah Carey song. The two were reminiscing about cheerleading camp when Stefan tried to cut in, which pissed off the vamp and she sped off to no doubt try and instigate a little trouble.

Bonnie made her way back to the bar a little aggravated that Stefan had wrecked the little bit of progress that she'd made. She and Caroline had been genuinely laughing and having a good time.

"You were so out of line with what you said about Damon." Elena stomped up next to her.

"Where's the lie?" Bonnie looked at her straight on as the brunette spluttered in outrage. "I have no idea what's going on with you lately-" Bonnie tuned her out, she had no desire to get lectured to tonight.

"Hey, Elena is it?" A soft voice broke in, "Jo's asking for you." Elena fixed Bonnie with a "we'll talk about this later" look and twirled off. Bonnie turned to thank her rescuer, and the words died in her throat.

Lisa stood in front of her with a friendly smile, "It looked like you needed a hand."

Bonnie smiled weakly, "I did, thank you." They both stood there for a moment before Bonnie remembered her manners, "I'm Bonnie." Lisa's smile brightened as she gestured to herself, "Lisa. Current Gemini member, and fellow reluctant attendee."

"Am I that obvious?" As much as she didn't want to be there, she also didn't want to throw a shadow over the whole event.

"Nah, I just recognize the look of wanting to simultaneously die inside, and be somewhere else." Lisa leaned on the bar next to Bonnie.

'Oh crap, she's actually nice.' Bonnie thought to herself.

"Are you obligated to be here?" She asked without thinking. "Oh sorry, that sounded-" Lisa cut her off with a short laugh. "Not really, it was highly encouraged, though." She leaned in closer to Bonnie, "Although, I'm pretty sure most of the coven is only here to see how Kai is handling being leader. They don't really care about Jo getting married, or rather they do, but it's more like they want her to hurry up and get knocked up so the countdown to Kai being replaced can start." Lisa said the last part a little bitterly.

Bonnie studied the floor while Lisa took a drink, "I'm sorry, don't mean to spread our business out like that, but it's true."

"Why tell me?" Bonnie asks while still looking down.

"Because I think he needs more people on his side, and having a Bennett would go a long way to easing people's fears about him." She said simply.

Bonnie laughed out loud, "He stabbed me and left me to die, I really don't think my opinion of him is something that you should be banking on."

"So him risking the life of everyone in the coven and almost dying means nothing?"

Bonnie snapped her head up in surprise, "What?"

"What?"

 

*****

 

A half hour later, Bonnie stormed back inside, more convinced than ever that leaving this fucked up world was the best thing for her. How dare nobody tell her about what Kai had risked for her? When was the last time someone had gone that far and above for Bonnie alone?

She spotted Jeremy speaking to Matt and stomped up to him, "Why didn't you tell me?" She hissed.

He looked at her in surprise, "Tell you what?"

"About Kai saving my life." Jeremy flushed and reached up to rub the back of his neck, "I thought either Damon or Elena would have told you."

Bonnie scoffed, "Seriously? When, after they pulled their heads from each other's asses? Why didn't you" she poked at his chest, "tell me?"

"Do you really want to do this now?" Jeremy looked around, her outburst had drawn a little bit of attention.

Bonnie stepped back, "You're right, why don't we table this like we table everything else that had to do with me. Someone saving my life, in my mind at least, is big news. But hey, it's not about Elena or Damon, so yeah fuck it, let's brush it under the table." She started to walk off, but Jeremy grabbed her arm, "Bonnie, wait-"

"She's walking away, and you're going to let her." Caroline had materialized right next to them. She forcibly removed his hand from her arm, and Bonnie saw Jeremy wince as Caroline squeezed, "Next time, just let her go. You know how to do it, you've done it before."

They walked back to their table. "Thanks Care." Bonnie rubbed her arm.

The blond shrugged, "No problem. I've been wanting to do that, but the little voice that kept saying 'wait, he's Elena's brother' kept getting in the way. This no switch thing is awesome." She bounced off, and Bonnie wanted to scream. How could she get Caroline to turn her humanity back on, if she saw no downside to having it off?

Bonnie was deep in thought, so she didn't see the body that planted itself right in front of her. "Having a good night, Bon Bon?" She looked up to see Damon sitting in her seat, blue eyes wide and mocking.

"Not tonight, Damon." She had drank quite a bit and was feeling raw from the information that Lisa had passed to her. The last person that she wanted to talk to right now was Damon.

"Nothing witty to say? You seemed to be doing fine earlier." He pressed.

Bonnie sighed, he never did learn when to leave well enough alone. "Fine, let's talk." She quickly drew up a silencing spell so their conversation would be kept private. "Why didn't you tell me what Kai did on my birthday? Why let me think it was because of you that I found that map?"

His eyes widened before narrowing and shooting a death glare over to Kai's table. "Did he tell you that?"

"No, Damon, he didn't tell me. I had to hear it from someone else, and Jeremy of all people confirmed it."

He shrugged, "It didn't seem important, all we were concerned about was getting you back." Bonnie bristled as he tried to charm her into dropping the topic.

"To you." Bonnie interjected.

"What?"

"It didn't seem important to you, that I be told. Why? Because you wanted to be seen as the hero? Because you wanted to look good in Elena's eyes? Did you even think about how I'd feel? Walking around carrying all that rage and pain at him, all the while not knowing that he risked not only his life, but every member of his coven for me?" Bonnie could see every question irritate him more and more, but Damon tried to brush it off as usual.

"You know what? This is why I kept it from you! One good thing and you're ready to roll over and go skipping hand in hand with him. Don't forget who he really is." He sneered.

"Why not? I did it with you, and you've done way worse to me over the years." Bonnie said bluntly.

She watched Damon splutter and try to contain his rage, "So what, you're ready to go make nice with him now? Are you forgetting that he kidnapped and tortured Elena too? Or is that all water under the bridge?"

Bonnie huffed in disbelief, "Seriously? How about we go ask Elena how she was able to sweep all the shit you did under the bridge? Kai didn't do half the shit that you did, but here you are!"

Damon leaned in closer, "We all know why Elena chose to forgive me, are you saying the same is true for you?"

"You know I'm not." She denied adamantly. "But it's also bullshit that you know what he did and didn't think that was something that I needed to know. What if we need more help down the line? Having a powerful coven on our side would only help us in the long run."

Damon waved off her statement, "We don't need a coven. We've done just fine by ourselves."

Bonnie looked at him in disbelief, "I've lost every member of my family, Damon. I've died how many times? That's not fine, that's barely surviving. I'm sick of doing that, I want to live. Don't I deserve that?"

Damon sighed and reached for her arm, but she makes sure to stay just out of reach, "Of course you do, Bon, but we can't trust him."

"We've worked with other people that we don't trust. Other people that have done worse to us, Klaus for instance. Why are you so against Kai becoming an ally? Maybe you should think about that, cause I'm done overextending myself. Literally killing myself and what happens? We go through the same thing a week later. I'm not saying I'm moving out there, but I'm not going to turn down the offer of help if it's extended, and neither should you." Damon closed his eyes in frustration, trying to formulate a new argument.

"Bon, I-" He stopped abruptly, looking over her left shoulder. Bonnie followed his gaze to see Joshua Parker standing there. Even though she and Damon were in a disagreement, old habits took over and she turned to stand next to Damon, and together they faced the former Gemini patriarch.

Bonnie broke the silencing spell and greeted him, "Hello Mr. Parker."

"Ms. Bennett, thank you so much for welcoming the Gemini onto your land, it's been many years since our covens have gathered in the same place." Bonnie took note that he completely ignored Damon as he held out his arm. "Normally the two coven heads share a dance to show the accepted mingling of lines, but as I'm aware of your troubled history with my son, would you do me the honor?"

Bonnie glanced at Damon, who arched an eyebrow back in her direction. She wished she had been taught more about coven customs and courtesies. She didn't want to snub the man, but dancing with him just was not something that she wanted to do.

Her reprieve came in the most unexpected form, "I think this is one duty that I can perform without messing it up." Kai stepped around his father's form and held out a hand to Bonnie. She took it without hesitation and together they walked onto the dance floor. She knew both of the other men were pissed, albeit for different reasons.

"Is there some sort of specific coven dance that we should be doing?" Bonnie asked nervously, "because I'll tell you right now, I won't know it."

A corner of Kai's mouth quirked up, "No need to do anything fancy, it's just a normal 'See-how-well-we-can-get-along' dance." Bonnie nodded and let herself be pulled in for what would hopefully be a quick and painless dance.

They swayed together in silence for a moment before Bonnie bit the proverbial bullet, "Thank you." She made sure to focus on a spot just over his shoulder.

He shrugged, "No problem, my dad seems to have a hard time in letting go of the reins. Not gonna lie, I really like putting him back in his place."

"Oh, well thanks for that too, but that's not what I was talking about." She took a deep breath and met his questioning eyes. "Thank you for doing the spell to help save my life when I almost...you know."

He frowned "You don't need to thank me, Bonnie. I was the reason you were left there in the first place. In fact, I should apologize to you for everything I did. The stalking, the stabbing, the siphoning, all of it. I'd like to say that if I could do it over again that I wouldn't, but I think we all know that would be a lie."

Bonnie blinked at him in amazement before ducking her head to hide her surprise. Had anyone ever apologized to her like that before? Admitting what they did all without making excuses?

"I know you probably don't believe me, but I've changed." His voice was lower, more urgent, like he needed her to believe him. 'With the merge, there's all these new emotions, and I'm trying to sort everything with my coven out, but I want you to know that-"

"I believe you." Bonnie broke in, "I'm not saying I'm ready to be friends or anything, but I believe that something happened that changed you."

The smile that spread across his face was ear to ear, but dimmed a little when he looked over her shoulder, "I take it some people aren't happy about that?" She didn't need to look to know he was talking about Damon.

"Some people can go kick rocks." She retorted sharply. "Kai, I need to ask-" But she stopped when she saw Caroline rush by with Matt and Tyler hot on her heels. "Oh, crap."

"What is it?" He looked over to the patio where the three had gathered. "What's going on?"

"Um, we're trying to get Caroline to turn on her humanity." She stepped out of the circle of his arms. "Thanks again."

Was it her imagination, or did he try to hold on a little longer than necessary?

 

****

 

In the end, her short interaction with Kai was pushed to the back of her mind. Caroline was understandably resistant to letting in all the hurt and pain that she had been blocking off. There were a lot of things said on all parts, but in the end, Bonnie watched with tears in her eyes as Caroline came back to herself.

Her remorse, as well as shame, was immediate. They all left and headed to Tyler's place, not wanting to draw any more attention to themselves. The childhood friends hung out for a few hours just talking and taking the time to get reacquainted.

They even briefly talked about Bonnie's trip to another world.

"So how would that even work?" Tyler asked around a mouthful of food, "Let's say you even get your hands on another ascendant, how could you know that you'd end up in the right world?"

Bonnie shrugged. "I don't know."

"And what about the Bonnie in that world?" Matt added, "What would happen to her?"

"I don't know."

"But what if-" Caroline started to ask.

"I don't know!" Bonnie yelled, "I don't know what's going to happen, all I know is that I have to at least try. I had a life there that I had carefully cultivated over time, and-"

"You were in love." Caroline's said softly.

"I don't know if I was that far, but yeah. I was in a real relationship. I was happy." Bonnie picked at the corner of the couch she was sitting on, "I was happy, and now it's like I'm just passing the time until I can get back." She didn't look up to see the faces of the other occupants in the room, "And I know this must sound like I don't give a shit about you guys, because I do, I love you all." She took a deep breath, "But I don't feel like I belong here anymore."

"Can the Gemini help?" Matt asked.

"Maybe?" Bonnie frowned, "How can I ask them to help me find a way to get to another world where I'm in a relationship with a better version of their now leader? But at the same time, they're the only ones that I know to ask."

"You mean you don't want to ask Kai." Caroline pointed out. "Didn't the merge like, kill the crazy part of him?"

"He's still unpredictable, Caro." Tyler objected, "He may say no just to fuck with her."

"He risked his life to take Jeremy back to 1994 in order to save Bonnie." Caroline argued, "Surely that means something, right?"

"It means he just wants to get on her good side." Tyler rolled his eyes. "From what Liv says, having a Bennett as an ally again would be a coup for him personally, not just the coven."

"But she wouldn't even be here for him to take advantage of that!" Caroline snapped, "If he helped her figure out how to get back, he'd have no way to hold it over her."

"Guys, chill." Bonnie cut them off. She knew from experience that if she let them go, they'd be arguing all night long. "I'm tired, my head hurts, and I wanna go to bed." Bonnie and Caroline said good night to the boys and went back to her Grams' place for a sleepover.

 

****

 

Early the next morning Bonnie was woken up to blond curls in her face as Caroline rolled over her in bed. "Oh my God, how are you still asleep?" Bonnie slid out from underneath the sleeping vampire and padded downstairs, she might as well eat a little something while she was up.

She was still trying to decide on what to make when she felt a pulse of magic just outside her door. She figured it was Manuel swinging by, but when she opened the door she was met by the current Gemini leader himself.

"What are you doing here?" Bonnie was thankful she'd thrown a robe over her pajamas before coming downstairs. Sure, he could still see her colorful sleep pants, but her tank top that clearly showed that she wasn't wearing a bra was hidden.

He cleared his throat, "I wanted to see how it went." Bonnie frowned in confusion, "Your friend flipping her switch back on" he rushed to clarify, "how did it go?"

"It went good." Bonnie smiled softly, "Mission was successful, and she's now upstairs hogging my bed, as usual." She played with the belt holding her robe closed.

"Good, that's good to hear." He nodded a few times while tapping his fingers against his leg. Bonnie had never seen him so fidgety, "Are you okay? You seem a little jumpy."

"What?" Kai blinked a few times, "No. I…um." He huffed out a laugh, "It seemed like you wanted to ask me something yesterday, and I figured I'd swing by to see what it was?" His voice went up at the end, making it sound like a question.

Bonnie's eyes widened, "Oh. Yeah I did, but now isn't really a good time, Caroline is here and we're gonna, you know, have a spa day. Between her mom dying and me being dead and coming back, we haven't had one in a long time."

Bonnie watched as he grimaced a little when she referenced her being dead, "Okay, that's fine, we can talk later." He turned to walk away and before Bonnie could stop herself she blurted out, "Are you going to the bachelor party?"

He turned around, "What?"

Bonnie gripped the belt of the robe tighter, "The bachelor party tonight, are you going? Cause I'm not going to Jo's, and if you're free, we can talk then."

"Why aren't you going to Jo's?" He tilted his head.

"I don't want to." Bonnie left it at that.

He regarded her for a minute, then shook his head, "I wasn't actually invited to my future brother-in-law's party , so no, I'm not going."

"Swing by here around 6?" Bonnie asked.

He nodded in agreement, "See you at 6. Want me to bring something?"

Bonnie thought back to the last time Kai had offered to cook for her, "No, I'm good." She stepped back and closed the door.

"Well, that was interesting to watch." Bonnie jumped as Caroline appeared next to her, "Was he like this in the other world?"

 

****

 

Her girl's day with Caroline was exactly what they both needed. They watched 90's movies and ordered an obscene amount of food to gorge on all day, although Bonnie also set aside a few things for when Kai stopped by later that night. Bonnie fully opened up about her time in the other world, more specifically, her relationship with that Kai.

"So he was his actual age? Bonnie, that's well in his 30's!" Caroline's baby blues were wide open, "Didn't that feel weird to be with someone so much older?"

"Not really. I mean, sometimes it was noticeable, like when he was doing official coven things, or when he was around his kids, but mostly I never even thought about it." She stared off into space, "One of the things I liked about him was that he never made me feel dumb for not knowing something magic wise. He just rolled with it and taught me, and not because he would need me to fight later, but just because he thought it was something that I should know.

"He sounds awesome." Caroline set her drink down, "I'm going to say something now, don't hate me. I know why you want to go back, and I'll fully support and help you in any way I can, but why not try to build something like that here, in this world?"

"It's just different Care." Bonnie laid prone on the carpet. "The Kai here? Killed children, his siblings, no less. For all the shit we talk about Elena, what the hell does that say about me if I were to consider it?"

Caroline snorted, "Cause we've never killed anyone? We don't associate with people who have a high as hell body count? Stefan killed so many people, he had a nickname, Bon." She focused all her attention on Bonnie. "To put it bluntly, I fucked Klaus Mikealson. The person who singlehandedly made it his job to kill as many people as he needed to in order to undo his damn curse. Now I can say that I did it to keep him away, but that would be a lie. I wanted to have sex with him."

"I know, and what's even weirder, I said pretty much the same thing to Damon when he gave me shit yesterday."

"Why was he giving you shit?"

"I blew up at him when I found out he didn't tell me the whole truth about how he 'saved my life'" Bonnie air quoted. "I had no idea it was Kai that did the spell to send them there, or that when he sent Jeremy back, Liv had already attacked him and he was bleeding out."

"That son of a bitch took all the credit, didn't he?" Caroline hissed, and when Bonnie nodded, she rolled her eyes, "He will do anything to look like a savior in Elena's eyes."

"I don't think it was only about that" Bonnie sat up, "I think he really did want to help save me."

"I'm sure he did," Caroline agreed, "But there's also that creepy possessiveness that he has with you too."

Bonnie had been getting up to get another slice of pizza but stopped, "What now?"

"You really gonna tell me you haven't noticed how he tends to hoard you and your magic for his purposes? He probably didn't want you forgiving Kai because he might take you away from here." Caroline said nonchalantly. "How did you even find out about it?"

Bonnie sat back down, "Okay, you're not going to believe this mess." Caroline dropped the burger she was munching on and scooted closer, "The person that told me? Is his wife in the other world."

"Shut the front door!" The baby vamps mouth was hanging open. Bonnie ran through how Lisa fit into the story, watching as Caroline grew more and more enthralled.

"This is like one of Ms. Sheila's stories!" She squealed. "Do you think she knows something is up? I mean, she sought you out on purpose, you have to know that by now. I think she's trying to hook you guys up!"

Bonnie shook her head, "I may not hate him as much as I did, but he still hurt me Care. He lied to me, stole my magic, stabbed me, and then left me to rot in an empty world. That's not exactly the best start to a relationship."

"But didn't he apologize? Isn't he trying to make amends? How can he if you won't let him?" Caroline pressed. "There has to be something about him that you like, otherwise you wouldn't have given the other him the time of day."

"Not gonna lie, there's always been this….thing between us, but whenever I look at him now, I'm not thinking about him, I'm thinking about my Kai that I left. Speaking from personal experience, it is not a good idea to get involved with someone prior to handling your old business.."

"Then don't treat him like second best, treat him like a whole new person. Which he is technically. He's got traits from Luke and Jo's magic, who knows what kind of person that will enable him to be."

Bonnie squinted at her, "Why are you pushing this so hard?"

"Well, aside from the fact that I'd miss my best friend if she were to go to another friggin world? I just really want to see you happy, Bon. And I think he could be a good pick for you. He's your age, for one."

"Not really." Bonnie cut in.

"Well, he looks like he is." Caroline amended, "He's not scared of Damon or of the things that go bump in the night here. He's head of his coven and that means he's powerful. All those years growing up as a Gemini, then spent alone with nothing to do? You know his magic knowledge is top notch, I know he'd have no problem teaching you what he knows because….." she trailed off with a sly grin.

"Because?"

"He likes you, I can tell." Caroline finished.

"How? Heffa, you've had your humanity off this entire time!" Bonnie asked incredulously.

"Hello! I still had eyes and ears. He voluntarily spent time with Damon just so he could get access to you. I didn't really care at the time beyond being glad that it irked Damon so much, but he was all about finding you and making things right. I don't think he even knew what was going on, just that he had to do it."

Bonnie pointed at her, "See, that's another thing, he's dealing with all these new emotions and feelings and stuff. Who's to say that what he's feeling is real, and not just some massive dose of guilt that's finally hit him for all the stuff he's done?"

"Well you won't know until you try, right?"

"Ugh, you are no help at all." Bonnie flopped back onto the couch.

The topic turned back to lighter things until Caroline left to go get ready for the bachelorette party. Bonnie passed the time by straightening up and pulling out the food she set aside earlier to reheat in the oven.

 

****

 

At 6 on the dot there was a knock on the door, Bonnie opened it up to see Kai standing there with a box. "I couldn't stop by without bringing something. I can take them with me if you don't want them."

Bonnie looked in the box to see a half dozen different types of cupcakes from a well-known bakery in town. "I can work with that. Come in."

Earlier she had cast a 'no harm' spell on the cottage. It was a spell she had brought back with her from the other world and reinforced with some of her Gram's charms. It would let anyone enter as long as they didn't intend to do her harm. She watched carefully as Kai was able to easily step over the threshold.

Breathing a sigh of relief she led him into the kitchen to place the cupcakes in the fridge until it was time for dessert. They sat eating at the table in silence until Kai tried to lighten the mood, "Well, this isn't awkward at all."

"I think it's going to take a long time before we're not awkward with each other." Bonnie said absently.

"Good thing we have time, then." Her head shot up, he was looking right at her with determination.

She dropped her eyes back to her plate, 'now or never, Bennett' she told herself. She set down her fork, "exactly how much do you know about the ascendant and jumping worlds?"

He had stopped eating as well, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because before I came back here, I was sent to a different world. I want to go back, and I want you to help me.

 

*******

A/N: Sorry for the wait, I recently completed an (almost) cross country move, so it took a while to get up and going again. Thank you for your patience! We're nearing the end, two chapters at the most left now!


	9. Chapter 9

He had stopped eating as well, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because before I came back here, it sent me to a different world, and I want to go back."

 

*****

 

Kai had, unfortunately, just taken a sip of his drink when Bonnie spoke. She watched as he sputtered and fought to get himself under control. "What?"

"Pretty sure you heard me." Bonnie replied.

"No. Cause it sounds like you just said that the ascendant" he stressed the last word, "took you to a whole different world than the one you came from. That's not what it's supposed to do, it's not a tesseract."

"A what?" She scrunched her face up in confusion.

"An ascendant is made to bring you in and out of two specific worlds, and that's it." He explained, "A tesseract is something that allows you to jump to and from multiple worlds. It takes a hell of a lot of magic, not only to make one, but to get it so specific that you can choose where you want to go." He sat back in awe, "How the hell did you manage that?"

Bonnie looked at him in amazement, "You're really asking me? Like almost everything else in my life, it just happened, and I rolled with it. I rolled with it for years."

Kai's eyes widened, "Years?"

Bonnie nodded and gave him an extremely sanitized version of what transpired during her time there. Of course she left out the fact that she was in a relationship with his well-adjusted other self. Kai sat and listened to her speak, a shocked expression on his face the entire time.

"Wow." He breathed out.

"Yeah." She agreed.

He frowned and looked like he wanted to say something, but thought the better of it and took another drink instead. "So you're wanting to see if you can make another tesseract and go back to that specific world?"

"Yes. I know it's possible." She saw him start to shake his head and rushed to add, "Manuel told me it was, but I have no clue how to go about doing it. All of my research has turned up nothing, and I can't reach Abby or Lucy, so I figured…"

"You figured you'd use my coven." He said flatly.

"I figured that since I have proof that we could actually work together in a different world, that I would give it a try here in this one." Bonnie snapped. "But I guess I was wrong." She got up and began clearing the table, "Don't worry about it, then. It's not your issue, I'll handle it myself."

"For fucks' sake." He pushed away from the table, "I'm not saying that I won't help you, but you have to understand, that's a lot to ask from my council upfront. I just took control and I'm pretty sure nobody trusts me not to jam a shard of glass in my neck and kill us all. I want to help you, but it will take time."

"I wasn't asking you to ignore everything else and only focus on me and my issues, I know you have a lot going on. I just wanted to know if I could have access to your library every now and then." Bonnie reasoned with him, "I'm pretty sure I ran across a few books about the ascendant, but I didn't really focus on them at the time."

He side eyed her, "You had access to the Gemini library?"

Bonnie focused on stacking the dishes in the sink, "Yeah, I uh, spent a few summers there at the compound." She felt his eyes boring in the back of her head. "Okay, I'm going to need more information than that."

"It was no big deal, in exchange for taking on Klaus, I agreed to a few things. One was to spend my summer breaks there with the Gemini learning as much as I could." She let out a small laugh, "I was told on more than one occasion that my magical knowledge was 'extremely disappointing'."

Kai tried to hide his laughter, especially when Bonnie turned to give him the evil eye. "Anyways" she rolled her eyes, "I spent a lot of time there." She went back to the subject at hand. "Unless they've changed things around, I know my way around and I wouldn't interfere with any official Gemini business." She realized she sounded like she was almost begging, but she sensed she was so close to finding the answers she looked for.

"So" Bonnie noted that Kai tried to sound casual, "you spent all that time there, and nobody tried to get you to officially join the coven?"

"I didn't say that." She deflected.

"So they did, and you said no?" He pressed.

"I didn't say that either." She evaded his question. "It was complicated."

There was silence, then Kai asked the question that she had been dreading. "What was I…he like?" When Bonnie didn't seem inclined to answer his question, he tried again. "It just seems like you trusted him. Enough to strike a deal with him and the coven. And to agree to spend your summers learning from them, so he must have convinced you somehow…." He trailed off when she stayed silent. "Right. Well, I think I'm gonna go. I'm choosing my council members and there's actually quite a few that didn't flee in horror at me being leader, so it's a pretty good list." He laughed self-deprecatingly.

Bonnie followed him to the door, silently hoping that he would just leave with no more questions. But of course that didn't happen. Right as he was stepping over the threshold, he paused, "Would you be open to the same deal with me?"

"What?"

He turned to face her fully, and slipped his hands inside his pockets. "I gotta admit, other-me had a damn great idea. If I were to offer you the same deal, would you take it? I'll agree to give you access to whatever you need, but you'll have to come to Portland."

"Are you serious?" Bonnie was not really surprised that this Kai was so quick to mirror his other self's actions.

"Absolutely, look at it this way. It gets you out of this hell hole and around new people. Plus, you'll get to continue learning about magic, and work on getting back to where you really want to be. Think about it." He left her with a jaunty little wave.

Bonnie closed the door in frustration, she knew there would be a catch.

 

****

 

She agreed to it, of course. There really wasn't a chance that she wouldn't. As she got dressed the morning of the wedding, she thought about what it would be like to go back to the Gemini compound, albeit this time under different circumstances. She knew there would be ghosts lingering about, there weren't too many places that she hadn't explored with her Kai.

And by explored, she meant had sex.

Though she didn't have to worry about that this time around. While it was true that her anger towards the Kai of this world had had considerable time to fade away from blazing hatred into a moderate dislike, she still didn't trust him one bit. However, she would be happy to prey on his new-found guilt in order to get what she wanted.

"You ready, Bon?" Matt knocked on her bedroom door. He had agreed to come over the night before and get ready with her and Caroline before heading over to the ceremony, while Tyler would be meeting them there. She grabbed her clutch and opened the door to see Matt's smiling face. "Damn Bennett, you clean up good." Bonnie laughed and poked him in the side, "Look who's talking, you trying to hook up tonight?" Matt looked dapper in his black dress pants and blue shirt that brought out the blue in his eyes. Bonnie watched as the tip of his ears flushed a little red in embarrassment at her teasing.

"We all look hot!" Caroline called up the stairs, "So let's get a move on." Bonnie accepted the arm that Matt held out and the two friends walked downstairs to meet the third person in their little trio. "Picture time!" Caroline already had her phone out and they all posed for a few pictures before trooping out the door.

The ceremony had been beautiful, Bonnie could admit that. She felt herself get a little choked up at seeing Alaric finally getting his happy ever after. Their seemingly sleepy little town had brought nothing but pain and misery for him the entire time he'd been there, she hoped he realized how good he had it and moved away from Mystic Falls as soon as he possibly could. If not to protect his brand new wife, then definitely for his soon to be born children.

She told him as much when they'd spoken during the reception, he had approached her and asked her for a dance. He nodded over to where Jo and Kai were approaching the dance floor, and she assumed it was some kind of coven thing once again.

"I never got the chance to thank you for allowing me to pass through you." He began awkwardly, "Without that…you, I never would have gotten the chance to have all this."

Bonnie smiled at the older man, "You want to thank me? Move away from Mystic Falls."

His face fell in disbelief, "What?"

"Alaric, you just married your second wife and you have twins on the way. If you want to have a long life with any of them, you need to leave. This place is like poison." He tripped over his feet at the bluntness of her words and she gripped his hand to keep them moving along smoothly.

"Okay, no need to beat around the bush." He tried to lighten the mood, but Bonnie wouldn't be swayed.

"Ric, I just came back to life again. My entire family was decimated, none of us have any parents. Do you want that for your children?" She pressed on. "Because I'll tell you right now, if you stay, that will be in your future. Except don't forget, even though Jo rejected her coven, she's still a Gemini. She's carrying the coven's current heirs, if you won't protect her, they will." She glanced over to the side of the barn where the Gemini all sat. "More specifically, he will."

Their attention turned to where Jo and Kai were doing an almost believable imitation of a normal dance, but Bonnie could see the tension between the siblings. They were talking amongst themselves as well, and judging by the looks on their faces, the topic was along the same lines as theirs.

"And this time, you won't have me to intervene." Alaric's gaze snapped back to Bonnie. "I'm serious. I'm not dying again for some stupid shit. I don't have the juice to take on a whole ass coven, Ric. Nor will I try."

"I never expect you to-" Alaric denied

"But you never tried to stop me, none of you did. Not really." Bonnie countered softly. "But all that is beside the point. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I'm stepping back for my own good." She thought for a moment, then added, "And to tell you to watch your back." At his confused look, she elaborated, "Most of the Gemini are not happy that Kai is their leader. Jo being pregnant with the heirs means that she's gone from someone inconsequential, to the one person with the most bargaining power, and they may go through you to get to her and those kids." The song ended and Bonnie walked away from Alaric standing on the edge of the dance floor looking stunned.

"What the hell did you say to him?" Tyler asked as he followed her back to her seat.

Bonnie shrugged, "Admittedly, I could have phrased it better, but it pretty much amounted to leave Mystic Falls if you want to ensure that you'll live long enough to see your kids grow up."

"Damn, that's rough." Tyler winced.

"Well maybe it'll get through to him. Somebody from this godforsaken town needs to have a happy life." Bonnie sat down and reached for her water, she really hoped Alaric listened to her.

The night continued on with only a few bumps. She shared a dance with Jeremy before he had to leave to catch his plane, and they managed to get the closure that they had been denied the previous times. She loved him, but it had shifted from romantic love to the kind she felt for Matt or Tyler. He was disappointed, she could tell, but bowed out gracefully.

She also shared a dance with the former Gemini leader.

That had been almost three minutes of Joshua making veiled accusations and Bonnie skillfully deflecting. She knew Joshua saw her as merely a pawn in order to keep tabs on Kai, but Bonnie wanted no part of that. So she was carefully noncommittal until the dance ended. She gave him a farce of a smile and turned to leave, but was waylaid by his hand on her upper arm.

"If I can leave you with one thing…"

"Mr. Parker, I don't believe we've had a chance to catch up." They both turned as Lisa walked up with a stony faced Kai in tow. The elder woman made quick work of separating him and Bonnie and whisked him out on the dance floor, leaving Bonnie and Kai standing next to each other in silence.

Kai holds out his arm, and for the second time, Bonnie takes it and walks onto the dance floor.

"What will you tell them? Or rather, will you tell them?" Kai asks, tilting his head over to where the trio of Damon, Elena, and Stefan are all eyeing them.

"I'll figure something out." Bonnie said, "Not like they'll notice I'm gone, unless they run into some trouble." She added bitterly. She saw Kai glance down at her in surprise. "Don't." Bonnie said wearily, "Just, leave it to me." She didn't even want to imagine the theatrics that was awaiting her once she told everyone her plans.

"There is one last thing that we have to do to seal this deal." Kai interrupted her thoughts. "I want to do a binding spell."

Bonnie reared back, "What, why? He didn't make me do one when I made a deal with him." Neither one needed her to specify which "he" she was talking about.

"He didn't have the history that we have." Kai briefly tightened his hold on her. Bonnie idly thought about how she hadn't once feared him siphoning her when they touched. Her time with the other Kai had pretty much killed all those worries.

"Plus, it makes it more official. Less easy to back out if you change your mind."

"I won't." Bonnie grit out. "But fine, if that will make you feel better, I'll do the spell. I assume it'll be before you leave?"

Kai gave a quick smirk before schooling his face back into placidity, "Actually, I want to do it now, in front of everyone."

"You cannot be serious." She hissed.

"Relax, it's not going to be a big drawn out thing. We clasp arms, say a few words, and ta da, spell is done." He kept his tone casual but Bonnie was working out in her mind what he wasn't saying out loud.

"You want them to see it." She said slowly, "You want your coven to see that you're entering into a pact with me." She frowned, "Why?"

He spun her out and brought her back in closer than before, "Are you kidding? I get to do something that not a lot of other Gemini members have done over the years, bring a Bennett into the fold. And to do it right after I become leader, major points for me."

"So this is all about convincing the rest of the coven that you're not going to kill them all?" Bonnie snarked.

"Hey, you're using my coven for something, I figure I can get something out of it too." He defended.

"I don't know how much clout I can bring. I know for a fact that there are people that consider me basically defective because of my upbringing and who I associate with." Bonnie warned.

"But you're still a Bennett. Your name alone carries weight, not to mention everyone knows what you've accomplished here. Alone." Kai took advantage of her momentary shock and dipped her. "You may not realize it Bonster, but you and your little gang here were being talked about by people long before you discovered the Gemini existed." He lifted her back up and gripped her forearm. "So let's do this."

Bonnie took a deep breath and mimicked his action, almost immediately she felt a jolt shoot up her arm before magic that was invisible to everyone present except the witches in attendance, swirled in the air. She saw the side of the barn where the Gemini were gathered stop talking amongst themselves and gather around the edge of the dance floor.

Kai started chanting and Bonnie felt relief that she recognized the words. It was a simple promise spell that she had luckily already been taught. She spoke her portion and watched as strands of her magic joined with Kai's. She blinked back sudden tears at feeling brushes Kai's magic again. Even though from what she heard, this Kai had initially merged with Luke before Jo gifting him her magic, it still felt enough like her Kai's magic to have her getting a little emotional.

The spell done, and their magic recalled back to it's owners, Bonnie attempted to pull her arm back, but Kai stubbornly held on, his face cycling through several expressions before settling on wonder. "I was older."

"What?" Bonnie's heart was still thudding in her chest.

"I saw me….him when we did the spell, you were thinking of him and I saw him." He said as if in a daze. "Who are Emily and Genevieve?"

Bonnie's eyes widened as she ripped her arm from his grasp, "I didn't give you permission to go wandering through my head."

"I didn't have to." He said shortly, "It was all right there, you never learned how to block your thoughts?"

"Stay out of my head." Bonnie turned on her heel and left the dance floor.

******

 

She stayed until after the speeches and cake cutting, then managed to slip out while Jo was preparing to throw the bouquet. There were too many people gathered, and she wanted to be alone for a bit. Plus, the looks she was getting thrown from not only her own friends, but also random Gemini members were putting her on edge.

She was trying to think of a good explanation for leaving when she got the tell-tale tingle of a vampire nearby. "I'm not in the mood right now, Damon. Go away and I'll talk to you later." She had just arrived home and wanted nothing more than to just change out of her dress, kick off her heels, and veg out.

"You wound me, little witch."

Bonnie whipped around to see Kol Mikealson standing next to her porch swing. She blinked in disbelief, "What are you doing here?" Since the originals had left, she had done a great job in almost completely blocking their existence from her mind. Minus a few phone calls here and there.

Kol raised an eyebrow, "That's it? No threats or promises of torture if I don't leave this instant?"

Bonnie snorted, "Would that deter you?"

"Not at all." He replied with a cheeky grin.

"Then there you go." She lifted a hand in a "see" gesture. "What can I do for you Kol?"

He said nothing, just watched her for a moment in silence. Just when Bonnie was about to give him a magical shove, he shook his head briefly, "I didn't want to believe it when I was told, but I guess there is some truth to the rumor."

"What rumor?"

He ran a hand absently along the porch railing, "You haven't accidentally managed to find yourself in another world lately, have you?"

Out of all the things that could have come out of his mouth, that was the very last one that she had been anticipating. "How the hell do you know?"

"You remember my dear, beloved, mother?" His voice dripped with disdain. At Bonnie's nod he continued, "Well it seems that she is still bound and determined to kill her children one way or the other. One extremely long and convoluted story short, I was also very briefly transported to a similar world."

"Were we in the same one?" Bonnie wondered. The Kol in the previous world had given no indication that he knew anything about her situation.

"I don't believe so, love." He leaned against the railing, arms braced behind him. "There are infinite worlds, as I'm sure you're aware of by now, we could have been in any given one."

"Okay, so how did you know that I went through the same thing?"

He pursed his lips at her, "You look a bit tired, wouldn't it be more comfortable if you invited me inside and we could speak more casually?"

"Nice try, but not going to happen." Bonnie said flatly, "Explain."

The young original sighed dramatically, "Fine. Upon returning to this wretched world, I've been trying to locate a tesseract for my personal use. Imagine my surprise when I was told that I wasn't the only one making discreet inquiries." He winked at her, "Quite a coincidence, I'd say."

Bonnie wanted to ask a million questions about what it was that Esther was doing, worried that it would affect the few vampires that she knew. She may have been completely over most of their attitudes, but there were still faint bonds of friendship there.

"Kol, I-"

"Am I interrupting?"

Bonnie and Kol both turned in surprise as Kai materialized on her front steps. Bonnie noticed he'd since lost the tie he had been wearing earlier and had the first two buttons on his shirt open. She didn't know what that look on his face was, but it didn't bode well for Kol, who had straightened from where he had been leaning. He came to stand next to Bonnie, "And who do we have here? Will you make the introductions, darling? Or will our newcomer have to do the honors himself?"

Bonnie saw Kai's eye twitch at hearing Kol call her 'darling' and groaned to herself. He shoved his hands into his pockets and widened his stance, "Kai Parker, head of the Gemini coven, and you are?"

"Kol Mikealson, the only original you'll ever need to know." Kol sounded like he had come to stand right behind her. "Your taste in acquaintances have improved vastly since we last spoke, I see. Please tell me that the dopple-twit and the brothers idiotic are no longer in the picture."

Kai snorted at that, but still kept an eye on Kol.

"Hey!" Bonnie was the only one who could talk about her friends like that.

"Have you finally joined a coven then?" Kol asked, "If I were to give my opinion-"

"Please don't." Bonnie cut him off.

"If I were to give my opinion," He repeated nonplussed, "I would have said I'd rather you have come down to New Orleans if you were looking for a coven to join. From what I know of the Gemini, they wouldn't be appreciative of your talents."

Kai took a step forward, "What exactly do you know about the Gemini? Weren't you shanked by your brother and left to rot in a coffin for the last hundred years or so?"

Kol's eyes flashed, "And you've just been released from your decade and a half exile as well, if my information is correct, all thanks to Bonnie." Kol smirked deviously, "I can see why you'd want to court her for your coven, but one would have to wonder if that's your only reason."

Bonnie saw the muscles in Kai's jaw clench and decided to put an end to their little face off.

"Kol, that's enough." Bonnie twisted around to speak to Kol directly, "I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

"Should I come back, or will you make the journey out to mine?" Kol asked innocently.

"What journey?" Bonnie asked bewildered, "You're only-" she stopped as she realized what the goal of the question was; to let Kai know that she knew where Kol lived. She side eyed him as he stepped around her to leave. "Goodnight, Kol."

"Bonnie?"

Bonnie audibly groaned this time as she registered the voice coming from her front yard. She slowly turned, wishing on everything that she wouldn't find what she knew she would.

But of course, when had things ever gone her way?

Elena was standing in her front yard, flanked by a confused Stefan, and a visibly seething Damon. "What the hell is this?" He spat out.

"Oh goody," Kol outright grinned. "The proverbial gang is all here." He stood shoulder to shoulder with Kai. "Have you had the pleasure yet, Mr. Coven leader?"

"Unfortunately, I have." Kai said dryly.

"Are you okay, Bonnie?" To her credit, Bonnie noted that Elena did sound worried.

"Yeah Bon, are you okay?" Kai asked mockingly. "Can't have you associating with people that's not on the approved list. You might start to think for yourself and actually have your own opinions."

"Kai." Bonnie softly admonished.

"No, let him speak, little witch." Kol regarded Kai, "I must say I am in agreement with our new friend here."

"Why are you even here, Mikealson?" Damon asked, "I thought you and your family were down in New Orleans, why come back here?"

"That's none of your business, Salvatore. Why don't you bugger off and let us finish our conversation?" Kol said sharply.

"We're not leaving until we know Bonnie is safe." Elena refused to budge.

"Oh my god, seriously?" Bonnie shoved in-between the irate coven leader and original vampire. "Lena, I'm fine. Look at me, do I look hurt? Do I look like I'm in trouble? No." She answered her own question. "I'm fine." She noticed she was mirroring the trio on her lawn with Kol standing on her left and Kai on her right. "You guys can leave, we're just talking."

Damon crossed his arms and planted his feet. "About what?"

"The state of the Greek economy." Bonnie snarked.

"I can actually offer a few opinions on that as well-" Kol jumped in. He stopped when everyone turned to look at him, "Well I have been around a long time, I've seen economies rise and fall, and there are a few things they all have in common-"

"Kol." Bonnie shook her head.

"No, let him talk." Kai half turned to face Kol. "As he pointed out earlier, I've been away and missed some stuff, I'm interested in learning more about today's economy."

"I will magically seal both of your mouths if you don't stop talking." Bonnie felt a headache forming. "You." She pointed to Kol, "I will talk to you tomorrow."

"You." This time she pointed to Kai, "We will talk before you leave, I promise. Please go."

Kai held her gaze for a beat before giving a curt nod. "Okay." He glanced over at Kol, "Mikealson."

Kol raised an eyebrow, "Parker."

Bonnie breathed a sigh of relief as they both went their separate ways.

"It looks like you've got them trained well." Damon wasted no time getting a dig in.

"Unlike you, who don't seem to listen for shit?" Bonnie asked sweetly.

"I didn't realize you had expanded your friend list, Bonnie. Is that why you've been so off lately?" Damon said snidely.

"Damon." Stefan tried to step in.

"No, that's fine." Bonnie countered. "You got something you want to say? Go ahead."

"We're just worried, you haven't been yourself since you've been back." Elena tried to soothe the situation.

Bonnie glanced at her childhood friend, "And how would you know? You've barely spent more than an hour with me since I've come back!"

"Well, I was busy with the wedding, and school-" Elena sputtered.

"So it's business as usual, then? Bonnie's back on the shelf until you need something, then you remember I exist." Bonnie knew this confrontation was a long time coming, but really wished it had waited until she was less tired, she was sure her 'be kind' filter was broken right now. "Caroline, even with her humanity off, was around more than you were."

"Well I'm sorry that I have a life, and associate with other people." Elena snapped.

"Then why act shocked when I do the same?" Bonnie threw up her hands.

"That's not it." Stefan, ever the conciliator, tried to intervene, "It's just who you're associating with. We know Kai hurt you –

"And no one standing here hasn't?" Bonnie stepped forward, "Do you seriously hear yourselves? Why is it okay to give all of you chance after chance, but not Kai? What's the difference between the two? Especially since Kai actually put his life, and the lives of his whole coven, on the line just to help me when I was in the prison world?"

"Here we go with this again." Damon rolled his eyes. "You realize you were only stuck there because he left you, right?"

"Yes, here we go with this again!" Bonnie yelled. "Someone actually stuck their neck out for me, just like I do for all of you and I'm supposed to let that go simply because you don't like the fact that he's more powerful than you are?"

"That's not why I don't like him!" Damon scoffed, "I was there when he shot an arrow through your chest, remember? I'm just trying to look out for you, why is that so hard to believe?"

"Because when have you ever done something for someone else without it benefitting you?" Bonnie challenged. "You may have felt bad that I was stuck there, but come on, deep down you know that a part of wanting me back was so I could not only restore Elena's memories, but also help turn Caroline's switch back on."

"Bonnie that's not fair." Elena denied.

"Maybe not, but I can bet you the reason they're not saying anything right now is because they knows it's true." She faced all of them, "If I'm expected to get over Damon taking a chunk out of my neck, his countless put downs and calling me useless, both of them flipping a coin over me and my mother's life, and all the other shit that they both have done since arriving here, all without a proper apology, then you all will damn well accept the fact that I've chosen to align myself with the Gemini Coven, and thus Kai, for the time being."

There was silence until, "Just, why?" Elena finally asked.

"He's helping me with something." Bonnie answered simply. "It's got nothing to do with any of you, this is my thing."

"Are you leaving?" Elena sounded like she was on the verge of crying.

"No, at least not right now. I'll be making trips out there for research, but I won't be moving out there full time." Bonnie felt drained and wanted to head inside and just go to sleep. "I didn't meant to tell you like this, but hey, it is what it is." Bonnie shrugged. "Look, it's been a long day and I'm beat."

"Okay, let me get some stuff and we can call Caroline and have a sleep over just like old times!" Elena suggested.

"Nah, not tonight. Maybe next week." Bonnie offered with a sad smile, it sucked that it was only when they thought she would be leaving that there was an effort made. "Goodnight guys."

By the time Bonnie had showered, changed, and slid into bed, it was well after midnight and she missed the fact that she had received two new messages on her phone.


	10. CH. 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie has a choice to make

"You hanging out with the enemy now, Bon Bon?"

Bonnie groaned as she heard the snide question. She had been hoping that the text message that she'd gotten from Damon last night would buy her enough time to get out of her house unnoticed, but she had evidently underestimated how much Damon hated to be told no.

She turned from the front door to see Damon sitting on the porch swing with a steaming coffee cup in hand. "That better be for me."

"Only if you can answer a few questions." He patted the space next to him in invitation. Bonnie grabbed for the coffee as she sat down, but the vampire quickly moved it out of her reach. "Nuh uh. Details first."

"I told you, he's helping me with something, that's all." She focused on his daylight ring, pulling just enough magic from it to cause his hand to begin to burn in the bright daylight. He all but tossed the cup in her direction while covering his rapidly healing hand with the other. "Was that necessary, witchy?"

"Nope, but it was fun." Bonnie said simply as she sipped her ill-gotten coffee. She lowered the cup, "Look, I know it must look strange-" she paused when Damon snorted. "But it's not like I haven't given people that have hurt me before a second chance." She glanced pointedly at Damon, who to his credit, had the wherewithal to look somewhat ashamed.

"What about how he treated you?"

"What about how you've treated me?" Bonnie shot back. "Years ago when we first met, and in the not so distant past? You think I liked having a chunk torn out of my neck? You think I liked hearing that I was useless and that my life was shit compared to Elena's? No, but I still worked with you for a common goal."

"We've gotten past that." Damon waved her off, "I don't trust him, and I sure as hell don't like him hanging around you."

"What you don't like is that you can't control him." Bonnie bit back. "You're used to being the big dog with nobody to challenge that." Damon started to protest, but Bonnie barreled over him. "He doesn't need anything from you, or need to have access to Elena for her doppelganger blood, so you can't bend him to suit your needs." She turns to face him, "He wants to make amends with me, and doesn't give a damn if he has to go through you in order to get it. Sound familiar? Feels a little different now that the shoe is on the other foot now, huh?"

She thought for a moment, "Why are you getting spun up over this anyways? This isn't going to affect you at all, he doesn't even want to be near you."

"I told you, I'm worried about what he might be planning." Damon shot her an irritated glare.

"No, you're worried about losing your weapon." Bonnie stated.

"Look, Elena is concerned too." He tried again.

Bonnie burst out laughing, "You're really gonna try and dangle Elena in front of me? If she's so concerned, where is she now?" Damon closed his mouth with a snap. "Where has she been since I've been back? You came back and even though you didn't have Elena, you still had Stefan, right? I'm guessing Alaric too?"

"What's your point?"

"My point is that I only seem to exist when she or the rest of you need something. The most I saw either of you was when you were passing Caroline off to me to watch over." Bonnie took a long sip of her coffee. "I'm not a priority for her, and that's okay cause I've reshuffled some things too."

"So you won't care if he goes after Elena all because she overlooked you a few times?" Damon kept arguing.

"She literally has nothing that he wants, why would he?"

"Because that's what-" He stopped himself.

"Because that's what you would do." Bonnie finished for him. "He's not you Damon. He knows that if he so much as touches one of you, I'm ending our partnership."

Damon scoffed, "Like that ever stopped me."

"Yeah, but I actually mean it." Bonnie said simply.

Damon sat back at that, having nothing to offer as a rebuttal. "What the hell was mini Elijah doing here, then?"

"No clue." Bonnie responded quickly. Damon clearly didn't believe her and just looked at her.

"I'm serious! He literally just showed up last night." Bonnie shrugged.

"So you're just gonna go meet him?"

"Kol isn't looking to hurt me, he wants something I'm sure. I'm just gonna go see what it is, that's all."

"Alone?" Damon raised an eyebrow.

Not exactly, Bonnie thought to herself. When she'd woken up that morning, in addition to Damon's text demanding that she call him first thing, there was another one from Kai that said he would be meeting her at the Mikealson house this morning as well.

Bonnie checked her watch, "Thanks for the coffee." She stood up to leave.

"You should come over to the boarding house when you're done." Damon suggested.

"We'll see." Bonnie hedged, she wasn't sure what her mood would be when she left Kol's place.

****

When Bonnie got to the Kol's place, she took a moment to just sit and look at the house. Mansion, really. She noticed that in addition to the Porsche that was parked haphazardly in the driveway, there was also a Jeep taking up space as well. The last time she had been there was when Klaus forced her to unlink his siblings.

"Are you planning on staying out here all day, little witch?" Bonnie jumped a little as Kol suddenly appeared at her window. He held her door open as she stepped out, leaning close to not so subtly sniff at her neck. "You smell delicious."

Bonnie rolled her eyes, "Nice try, but I'm not wearing any perfume."

Kol winked at her as he closed her door, "I know."

She felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment at his statement, she knew he was just trying to get under her skin so she just ignored it. "Is that Kai's jeep?"

"Yes, he's been here for a good half hour, arrived with a spectacular array of doughnuts. Although my time in New Orleans has made me more than a little impartial towards beignets, they were an acceptable substitute."

"I've heard they were really good." Bonnie said absently as she took in her surroundings.

"You are always welcome to come down for a visit, I'll even play tour guide for you." Kol nudged her towards a set of double doors that led to what she assumed was the study. As Kol swung open the doors, the memory of Damon hanging from the ceiling came flooding back.

Bonnie closed her eyes and tried to rid herself of the image of Damon's bloody wrists being held in traps suspended from the ceiling. Klaus hovering so close to her, telling her to go free the man that had just turned her mother into a vampire. Rebekah standing by, silently waiting for her to make up her mind on whether or not to help.

"Little witch?" Kol's voice brought her back to the present. She took a deep breath and shook off the echos of the room.

"Sorry, memories." She said curtly.

Kol regarded her for a moment, "Nik told us that you were the one to de-link us, he didn't care to give particulars, but judging by your expression, it wasn't pleasant."

"No, it wasn't, but I don't want to talk about it. Let's get on with why you wanted to meet today." She took a seat on one of the couches in the study. "Where's Kai?"

"Right here." He walked in with a tray full of food. He set it down on the coffee table and gestured to Bonnie to help herself. Bonnie eyed the tray warily, meals involving the two of them were still a touchy subject.

Kai rolled his eyes as he took a pastry off the tray, "It's not poisoned, ask the vampire."

"I've already told her that they are a suitable stand in for beignets" Kol drawled from his seat next to Bonnie, his eyes fixed on Kai, "the vampire would also love to know the meaning behind this show of distrust."

Bonnie shook her head, "Not important, so let's get down to business."

Two hours and half the plate of donuts and pastries gone, the trio comes to what seems like an agreeable resolution for all involved. Since Kai had already agreed to help Bonnie find a way back to her alternate world, helping Kol find his way back to his wouldn't be going out of his way. Bonnie also discovered that Kol was in possession of a few magical items that were taken from the Gemini coven centuries ago. In exchange for helping Kol get back to his world, he agreed to hand over the items, plus a few more for Kai's benefit.

"Well, this has been most-" Whatever Kol was about to say was cut off by his phone. "Excuse me, it seems like my brother has sensed that I've experience a moment of joy and is looking to correct that." He answered the phone and promptly rolled his eyes at the yelling coming from the speaker.

"The more things change..." Bonnie said to herself, uncaring if the original hybrid himself could hear her.

"Why yes that is the lovely Miss Bennett." Kol threw a wink her way. Bonnie winced as the volume of yelling coming from Kol's phone increased. Kol walked out of the room, his voice raising as he tried to get a word in.

Bonnie collected her phone and keys, she knew from experience that Klaus could talk all day if you let him. They had hammered out an agreement, so there was no need for her to stick around. She stepped out into the midday sunshine and breathed deeply, she closed her eyes for a moment and let herself hope that she would get what she wanted.

"This is a big ass house for only a few people." Bonnie turned to look at Kai who had stepped out to stand next to her. "The main house in Portland isn't nearly as huge, and there's always people around."

Bonnie huffed, "Yeah, especially when you're trying to concentrate. The gardens are nice and big, though." She added absently looking off into the distance.

"Was that your favorite place?" Kai asked, "You know, in all your time spent with the Gemini in your other world." His voice held an edge that she didn't care to explore.

"I gotta go." She headed towards her vehicle.

"Wait." Kai fiddled with his keys a bit before looking straight at Bonnie. "Do I have him to thank for you not wanting to burn my face off?"

"What?"

"Look, what I did to you while we were in 1994, it was pretty awful. But you don't seem to hold it against me." Bonnie opened her mouth to disagree, but he beat her to it, "I don't mean you're okay with it, I'm sure there's a part of you that will always hate me for what I did. But it all feels, I don't know, muted somehow. Like you've had time to process what happened and came to terms with it."

Bonnie tilted her head in thought, muted was probably the right word. There was no longer that white hot hatred that burned within her. She still didn't trust him as far as she could throw him, but she couldn't deny that spending all that time in the other world with that Kai had helped her deal with her feelings in regards to the Kai in this world.

Bonnie slipped into her car, "I guess you do." She drove off leaving him standing in the driveway.

****  
When she got home, she found another surprise on her front porch.

"Doesn't anyone call anymore?" She said to herself as she walked up the steps.

Liv was seated in the porch swing, looking down at her hands. "I wanted to talk to you and I didn't know if you'd be mad at me or not."

"Why would I be mad at you?" Bonnie sat next to her on the swing.

"So I'm guessing nobody told you about what I did when Kai was trying to bring you back." Liv focused on the ground.

"Noo." Bonnie said slowly, "Why don't you tell me what you did." She listened as Liv explained how she had attacked Kai and had almost killed him while he was at the boardinghouse.

"Okay, but. You're a Gemini yourself, if you'd have killed him, then you would have died as well." Bonnie tried to make sense of what Liv just told her.

Liv shrugged, "I didn't care. I was prepared to lose the merge to Luke, we both knew he was stronger. But to have him be gone like that?" She sniffed, "He sacrificed himself for me and Jo, and all I could think was that it should have been me laying on the ground dead."

"I'm sorry about Luke." Bonnie said gently, "I don't know if anyone has said it yet, but he shouldn't have had to die like that." She took a deep breath, "Actually I'm glad that you stopped by, I wanted to talk to you too."

'About what?"

"I wanted to see if you hated me." Bonnie admitted. "It was because of me that Kai got out and I just, I don't know. I don't know if you blame me for it, but I just wanted to tell you that I never intended for that to happen." Bonnie scoffed, "I actually tried to keep him locked up, but obviously that plan failed."

Liv shook her head, "I did for a bit, but then I remembered that I had a few run-ins with Kai pre merge, and honestly, I get it. He was sneaky and dangerous even without magic, and truthfully with how untrained you were, it was a miracle that you managed to hold him there as long as you did."

Bonnie felt slightly insulted, "Gee thanks."

"No, I just meant that we both know how Kai is….or was. You're used to fighting hybrids and vampires, but other witches? You were completely in the dark about our coven and outmatched by his single minded focus on getting out of there by any means necessary." Liv tried to explain.

Bonnie couldn't deny that was true. She knew how to fight vampires, but going against Kai prior to his merging had been something new entirely.

"I don't blame you" Liv said haltingly, "But there are others that do. They won't come out and say it, but I've heard people talking."

Bonnie rolled her eyes, "Of course, cause it's so easy to blame the person who just stumbled onto your coven's dirty little secret. Maybe if they had handled this better years ago, none of us would be in this mess right now." She thought back to how well adjusted older Kai had been. "Let me ask you, because I'm still confused, why did they work to prevent the merge? If your coven is to be believed, then he would have absorbed parts of Jo's personality, right?"

"That's the way it's supposed to go, yeah." Liv admitted.

"Then why deny him the opportunity?" Bonnie asked the question that no one had been able to answer.

"He killed four of our siblings" Liv snapped, "maybe nobody wanted someone like that to lead a centuries old coven."

"I'm not talking about after he snapped, I mean before." Bonnie clarified, "Why not have them merge when they were supposed to and if Jo won, great. But if Kai won, then he wouldn't be what he was before. I mean, look at him now."

Liv looked at her in surprise, "Why are you sticking up for him?"

"I'm not-" Bonnie broke off and stared off into the distance. "I'm just trying to understand. The merge is supposedly vital to your coven's survival, but that was put in jeopardy the moment your dad, and the council I'm assuming, decided to ignore what was supposed to happen and go rogue with their own plan. All because of how Kai was born, which wasn't something that he had no control over. I'm not blaming them for what Kai did, that's on him alone." Bonnie turned to look at Liv, "The merge would have worked, it didn't have to get so bad that he felt the only way to force the merge was to literally kill off the competition."

"You don't know that-" Liv spluttered.

"Yeah, actually I do." Bonnie decided against telling Liv about her experiences with the other Kai. "Look at how he is now, and he merged with the wrong person."

"That doesn't mean that his true self isn't in there lurking somewhere. Who knows when he'll lose it again and lash out? Am I supposed to trust that him having bits of Luke in there will be enough to stop him?" The blonde argued. "You must not believe it either, to do what you did."

Bonnie frowned, "What did I do?"

Liv scoffed, "You expect me to buy that you all of a sudden have a need to be in a coven? You've always put yourself in the police keeper role, you just said that you tried to keep Kai in his prison world. Obviously you joined up with the Gemini just to keep an eye on him."

Bonnie swore under her breath, she didn't stop to think what it would look like to people who didn't know the whole story. However, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a good cover. Her presence in Portland could be easily be explained away by what Liv had just insinuated, plus it would keep those that blamed her for Kai being set free from placated a bit.

Her silence must have convinced Liv that what she said was true, "Look I just came by to make sure you got a heads up. The Gemini can be a minefield and I don't want to see you get in over your head."

"Well you can give me a rundown when we head back to Whitmore." Bonnie tried to sound upbeat.

Liv let out a bark of laughter, "Oh, you haven't heard? I'm being called back to Portland." At Bonnie's surprised face Liv nodded grimly, "Our new leader has deemed Mystic Falls a no go zone, so I'm transferring." She cocked her head in Bonnie's direction, "I'm surprised he hasn't tried to do the same for you."

"He could try." Bonnie said darkly. Mystic Falls may be a dumpster fire, but it was her dumpster fire until she left.

"Yeah, I thought so." Liv stood and shot Bonnie a half smile, "See you around the compound."

****

True to her word, after her semester at Whitmore when it was time for Bonnie to head to Portland, the first face she saw upon arriving was Liv's face.

"It's about time, Bennett!" She bounded out next to Bonnie and engulfed her in a hug while whispering in her ear, "thank fuck you're here, these assholes are getting on my last nerve."

Bonnie choked out a strangled laugh before embracing her back. She had never been close to the Liv here, but she hoped that it would change the more time they spent together.

'Why bother? You're just going to leave.' The traitorous voice of her conscious whispered. Bonnie mentally shook it off but the little stabs of guilt were starting to get to her. She thought of her last semester at Whitmore, since she had made the decision to stay out of the constant drama that seemed to follow certain people around, she had had what could have passed as a relatively normal college experience. Late nights studying for a test, random parties that Caroline would drag her to, and no supernatural attacks of any kind.

Could she really leave her world behind?

Bonnie followed behind Liv as she took her to the room that had been assigned to her for the summer, the blonde narrating on the building and the history of the coven the whole way. Bonnie took in the compound, noting the differences from her previous world against the one she was currently in once more.

Bonnie chuckled to herself as she realized that she was in the same room as before. She waved off Liv's confused look, "so what's first?"

It felt like déjà vu as Liv led her outside to the sparring area, knowing that she was being taken for evaluation. Bonnie tried not to let her excitement show, this time she was more than ready to show the Gemini what she was capable of.

Her arrival caused a few titters, but Bonnie wasn't focused on them. She looked towards the ring and saw Kenny going head to head with the Gemini leader himself. Bonnie looked on in awe as both fighters held nothing back, seemingly fighting till death. She had never seen Kai in full fighting mode and felt a little envious as to how natural he looked wielding the magic that he had just been gifted with as a result of the merge.

"He's fought his way up to the top." Bonnie heard to her left. She smiled to herself as she recognized the low voice of the primary trainer, Bee. "For someone who has had no magic up until recently, he is proving to be quite formidable."

Bonnie winced along with everyone else as Kai threw out a nasty sounding curse, but thankfully Kenny countered with a spell of his own as he advanced towards Kai. Bonnie wanted to call out to the other man to not let Kai get too close, she knew from personal experience that being siphoned was extremely painful, but she stayed silent. Sure enough, once Kenny was in arms reach, Kai's hand snaked out and Kenny went down with a muffled grunt.

The match was pretty much over after that, Bonnie watched as Kai helped the fallen man up and the two conversed for a bit about different methods and what could have been done different.

"He's pretty been pretty much undefeated since he took over." Bonnie turned to her left and was surprised to see that Lisa had snuck up on her while she had been watching the men talk. "Feel like breaking that streak?" The brunette asked with a sly smile.

Bonnie shook her head, "Nah, I've been siphoned enough already. Not really looking forward to experiencing it again."

"Oh I'm sure he wouldn't…I was just saying." Lisa sputtered before taking a breath, "Let me try this again. Will you be sparring while you're here?"

"I hadn't planned on it." Bonnie answered truthfully. She wondered how much Lisa actually knew about her agreement with Kai.

"If I may make a suggestion," Lisa leaned in, "You really should, I know I'm not the only one who'd like to see a matchup between a Bennett and our leader."

"I'm not here to make waves, Lisa." Bonnie said.

"Oh, I know. But why not have some fun while you're here?" She raised an eyebrow as she sauntered away to go congratulate Kai. They spoke for a bit before he made his way to where she was standing with Liv.

"You made it." He was still a little out of breath and a bit sweaty. He was clad in just a tank top and sweats, and Bonnie couldn't help but notice that he'd filled out even more since she'd seen him last at the wedding.

"I gave my word, so here I am." Bonnie had a hard time looking him in the eyes. Being back in Portland, surrounded by familiar people, all while Kai himself was looking a bit older with his scruff, was a little much for her. She really hoped she'd be able to find a solution sooner rather than later.

"I suppose you don't need a tour?" Kai asked wryly, "Since you're probably as familiar with this place as I am."

"What?" Both Bonnie and Kai startled a little, they had forgotten that Liv was even there.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." Kai quickly steered Bonnie away. "You didn't tell Liv?" He asked in a low voice.

"Did you tell Lisa?" Bonnie countered, wanting to know how many people were in on the exact terms of their partnership.

Kai looked confused, "Yeah I told Lisa, she's my second. She's gonna be helping you out when I have official coven duties to do." He paused, "Unless you want to sit in on a few meetings?"

"Definitely not doing that again." Bonnie refused.

"You attended meetings?" Kai held out an arm to halt their walking, "How involved were you in the coven? Did you attend any of the festivities?"

Bonnie lifted a shoulder, "I did some stuff, but mostly I was just here learning about magic and how to use what I had. I wasn't interested in joining a coven, but I didn't mind seeing the inner workings, you know?"

"Was he okay with that?" Kai's voice was tense like it always was when he referenced his other self.

Bonnie thought about all the times the other Kai tried to get her more involved with Gemini business. No, he wasn't okay with it, but he had learned to live with it. "It didn't matter what he was okay with, it was clear that it was my decision, and he respected it."

"Duly noted." Kai backed off and they walked in silence for a bit. Bonnie noticed that he was content to follow her as she headed towards the library. "You really do know your way around here, huh?"

Bonnie stopped just outside the door, "I told you, I spent quite a bit of time here. I love this library, hopefully it hasn't changed too much." As she went to open the door, Kai reached for the handle as well. Their hands touched and Bonnie watched him space out for a moment.

She waved her hand in his face, "Kai? Is something wrong?"

He pulled his hand back and pasted on a bright smile, "Nope, all good Bonster." He whirled around and left.

"Okaaay." Bonnie walked into the library and was hit with all kinds of nostalgia. Everything looked exactly the same. She sank into a chair, pulled her knees up, and closed her eyes just drinking in the atmosphere. She didn't think she'd ever be back in the Gemini compound, let alone back within their inner walls.

****

Bonnie flopped on the ground, arms spread akimo as she tried to catch her breath. "As soon as I catch my breath, I'm beating your ass for getting me involved in this." She threw her towel at the giggling brunette that was sitting on the ground next to her.

"How was I supposed to know he would pull out the old world magic?" She paused for a beat, "You still beat him though."

"Barely!" Bonnie groaned as she tried to sit up, "Oh I'm gonna be feeling that for a while."

Lisa took Bonnie's hands and helped her stand, "At least you'll get time to rest and be lazy for a bit, the rest of us have to attend this dumb coven gala."

"Can you skip it?" Bonnie was already imagining curling up in the library with a stack of books.

"Nope." Lisa exaggerated the 'p' "I'm his second, it's required that I attend."

"There you are!" Both women turned as the shrill voice of Lisa's mother reached them. Bonnie had done her best to stay out of the older woman's way, because it seemed like her dislike of Bonnie transferred over into this world as well. Annalise had made many cutting comments about Mystic Falls, Bonnie, and her grandmother. The only thing that kept her from snapping at the woman was that Lisa was quick to defend Bonnie whenever she was around to hear it.

"What are you doing just lollygagging around, you only have a few hours to get ready!" Before they both realized it, Annalise was tugging Lisa away, scolding her for waiting until the last minute to get ready.

Bonnie snorted, she had gotten to know Lisa pretty well over her stay here, and she knew that the other woman wasn't that big on the glitz and glamor. She thanked her lucky stars that she was exempt and went to her room to take a hot bath.

****

"So, what do you think?" Liv appeared in front of the desk that Bonnie had commandeered as her own. Bonnie sat back and watched as Liv modeled the floor length dark green gown that she was decked out in.

"You look great, I see you decided to tame your hair." Bonnie remarked. Liv had straightened her curls and swept her hair up in an elaborate up do that would make even Caroline jealous.

"Yeah well, if shit kicks off, I do not need to have my hair in my face." She perched on the edge of the desk.

"What could possibly kick off?" Bonnie wondered.

Liv snorted, "Are you kidding? Almost all the covens are only coming just so they can see if Kai has fucked up anything yet. And since it's "coven before everything" I'm required to show my face."

Bonnie smiled sympathetically, "At least there'll be booze?" She tried to soothe the blonde.

Liv barked out a laugh, "Yeah, there will be tons of booze." She stood up and flicked off tiny pieces of lint, "Last chance….I'm sure with you there they won't even notice when I make my escape."

"Pass."

"Thought so." Liv waved her clutch at Bonnie as she left.

Bonnie was jolted from her research by her stomach growling. She had ignored it the first half hour, but now it was becoming more insistent. She made her way to the kitchen, knowing that almost everyone would be at the gala tonight. The plan was to raid the leftovers that were always in abundance, or whip herself up something simple and then go back to researching, but when she stepped foot in the kitchen, she was met with a surprise.

"Oh! I thought you were-" Bonnie managed to get out.

"Needed a change of scenery." Was all Kai said in return. "I thought you were holed up in the library?"

"Got hungry." Bonnie explained.

Kai nodded once and wordlessly went to the fridge and pulled out a few items, "Omelet okay?" Bonnie started to object, but her stomach grumbled loudly then, making her choice clear.

"I guess so." She accepted with a self-deprecating chuckle. It was quiet for a while as Kai chopped ingredients for her meal, and Bonnie couldn't help but ask, "Who was it?"

Kai looked up from where he had been vigorously whipping eggs into a bowl, "What?"

"Who was it that made you come back?" Bonnie clarified. "I used to do the same thing, on the rare occasions I was around everyone. Someone would say something and before I knew it, I'd find myself hiding out in the garden."

Kai regarded her for a long moment before responding "Rebecca Porter."

"Ah." Bonnie thought back to the woman that looked like Liz Forbes, but had none of her warmth. "Yeah, she's a stone cold bitch. She once told me that I had no idea what it was to be a witch, and that my powers would be so much more useful in someone else's hands."

"Did you tell her to go fuck herself?" Kai poured the egg mixture into the pan.

"No. I didn't know how far up the chain she went, and didn't want to make waves, so I said nothing." Bonnie frowned, "Wait, did you tell her to go fuck herself?" She watched as a corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. "Ugh, so jealous."

"Did many people say stuff like that to you?" Kai sprinkled cheese into the pan as well.

"In the beginning yeah, but as soon as Kai-" She stopped herself. It was weird talking about older Kai with his other self so she rarely did it. Especially around Kai himself.

"You can talk about him, you know?" Kai was standing with his back to her fiddling with her omelet, "You don't have to cut yourself off all the time." He turned off the stove and slid her food onto a plate. "I'm sure you…miss him and everyone else there, so if it helps to talk about it, knock yourself out."

Bonnie didn't miss the way he hesitated before saying the word 'miss' but let it go. She was not going to get into a discussion about the other Kai with him. So she steered the conversation in a different direction. They talked about his leadership of the coven, learning to control his siphoning, and all the people that they couldn't stand that was at the gala.

Bonnie was laughing at his impression of a coven member when they were both taken by surprise, "Oh here's the party." They both looked towards the door to see Lisa standing there with her eyebrows raised. "I suppose my invite got lost in the mail?"

"This is more of a spur of the moment kinda thing." Kai shrugged.

"I got hungry and he made me something, that's all." Bonnie explained.

Lisa rolled her eyes as she strolled into the kitchen, "Relax guys, jeez. You would think I caught you guys screwing in here." She went to raid the fridge and missed Bonnie's briefly panicked look. Okay, she and other Kai had maybe fooled around in the kitchen a few times. She had been fairly successful in suppressing those types of memories, but sometimes they hit her with no warning.

She glanced at Kai, not really surprised to find him studying her face with narrowed eyes. If he didn't know, then he surely suspected by now that something else was going on. Bonnie decided to call it a night, "Thanks for the food, but I'm beat. Goodnight." She booked it out of the kitchen before either person could object.

****

That night seemed to set a precedence though. From then on, a few times a week, they would gather in the kitchen after hours and just hang out. Lisa joined them most nights, Liv even swung by from time to time, but it always started with Bonnie and Kai. They would start by going over possible ways to make an ascendant for a specific world, but would soon veer off topic and discuss whatever came to their minds. Except of course, the nature of her relationship with the other Kai. Bonnie knew Kai wanted to ask outright, but didn't want to anger her, so he kept it to himself.

It all came to a head one night when instead of staying in, Bonnie accepted the invite to go with a few other coven members to visit a popular vampire haunt. Given Bonnie's experience with dealing with vampires, they wanted her to come along to help mediate the talks.

Things went south soon after arriving and Bonnie found herself on the receiving end of a nasty gash to the side of her head when she stepped in to try and keep the peace.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Kai swore when they got back to the compound.

"Could you please stop yelling?" Her head was throbbing and she was currently seeing double as he ushered her into a room and sat her down to clean her wound.

"Why do you always have to put yourself in the middle of things?" He gently dabbed at the line of blood that started at her temple and flowed down to her cheek.

"Babe, honestly, it was an accident." Bonnie answered absently. She froze at the same time he did.

"What?" His voice was eerily calm.

Bonnie sighed and met his eyes, "Don't act like you're surprised. I know you had your suspicions."

He stepped back gesturing in her direction, "I thought you might have had a crush on the guy, I never thought you were actually involved with him." He ran a hand through his hair, "Jesus Christ Bonnie, he was in his forties! You went back three years which made you a teenager again!"

Bonnie closed her eyes at the absurdity of the conversation, "Wait, are you actually trying to Chris Hanson yourself?"

"I have no idea what that means."

"It means you're an idiot. Nothing happened that I didn't want to happen." As soon as she said it, Bonnie wanted to take it back.

"You wanted him?" He stood in the middle of the room looking thunderstruck.

Where the fuck was a vengeful vampire or werewolf when you needed one?

"Did you love him?" Kai asked.

Bonnie looked at him, did he really expect her to answer that?

He stepped closer to her, "Because I think he loved you." He swallowed, "wanna know how I know?" He reached over to gently tug her necklace from her shirt, revealing the delicate gold ring that lay hidden there "because he made sure to leave you a way to get back to him."

"What?" Bonnie breathed out.

"It was Kol that first suggested it." He gently moved the necklace around her neck until he got to the clasp. He undid it and let the ring fall into his open palm. "We could always make another ascendant, it was the getting you to the right world that was the issue. He suggested we use something from that world as a kind of homing device." He held up the ring. "He gave you this, right?" Bonnie nodded.

"Did you know that it opens up?" Bonnie frowned and shook her head. He never said anything about…..

Her train of thought halted as Kai did something and suddenly the ring unfolded into a perfect tiny sphere, each layer carrying it's own line of text. "You never needed the coven to help, you just had to look. All you have to do is add a bit of your blood, say the words, and you're there."

Bonnie felt her eyes fill with tears as she took the ring from him, "Kai, I-"

"But before you do, I just want to say that I hope you choose to stay." He stood directly in front of her. "I know I'm probably nothing like him, and that he's older and more established but, I think we have something here. And if you stay, it could be pretty fucking awesome. I know we've got all kinds of shit to figure out, but I think it could be worth it….we could be worth it. I know you feel like you don't fit in here anymore, but honestly I think that's just your shitty ass friends being, well, them." Bonnie choked out a laugh, trust Kai in any world to get in a dig about her friends.

"You belong here, in this world, with us, even with how shitty it may be right now. I will spend as much time as I need to get you to believe that." He pulled off one of his many rings, "But just in case you still need to go, this works on the same principle, it opens up and will lead you back here. I'm not going to say goodbye because I really hope you choose to stay, I'll just say see you later." He rested his forehead against Bonnie's for a moment before walking out and leaving her with two different possibilities.

Well, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Yes this is a bit late, but life and all that jazz. We're pretty much done, just have the epilogue to go and that'll be it for the main part of the story. I would love to have this like Redux and jump in and out of it as the time goes by. So this will be just the first part where Bonnie chooses what world she wants to stay in. All the other problems and stuff will come afterwards, if that makes sense.
> 
> And I know I'm not describing the ring well like AT ALL, but it's so gorgeous y'all. How TF do I insert a pic?


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